57 b 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 544 667 3 



F 375 

.N7 
Copy 1 



THE LOUISIANA LAW. 



SPEECH 



OF 



HON. T. M. NORWOOD, 

OF GEORGIA, 



UNITED STATES SENATE, 



FEBRUARY 17 AND 27, 1875. 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PBINTING OFFICE. 
1875. 






^v 






S P E E H 

OK 

HON. T: M. NORWOOD 



The Senate liavins under consideration the i-esolution to admit P. B. S. Pinchback 
as Senator from Louisiana — 

Mr. NORWOOD said : ^ ■ ^\ ■^ 

Mr President: When the fox, weary from the chase, begins to tiaii 
his brush and hears the deep-monthed bay of the pack and the shout 
of the hunters pressing hard upon him, his instinct teaches him to 
double on his track in order to ehide the hot pursuit. Wheu the poli- 
tician finds himself pursued by an indignant people he, too, from in- 
stinct turns in his path— endeavors to cover up his tracks and reach 
his point of departure. Sir John Falstalf was pregant and quick 
with this hi'^h moral virtue. He was a model politician He knew 
the true prince from instinct. His modern lineal descendants reflect 
no shade of dishonor on the valorous instincts of their great progeui- 

There is a story told of an animal whose depredations upon the 
beasts of the forest continued and grew to be so outrageous that he 
was finally called to an account. That animal was Reynard, the tox. 
He had abused Bruin; he had abused Chanticleer ; he had maltreated 
Iseo-rim, the wolf, and Gieremund his wife, and, indeed, every beast 
of the forest and field. At length complaints were laid before King 
Noble, the lion, and Reynard was accordingly arraigned before the 
King, but instead of confessing his crimes, or putting in a plea of 
not guilty, he appeared and began to confess the sins of the other 

beasts. , , . , - ti ^ • 

Mr President, we have an illustration ot the history of Reynard in 
the political party which has had control of this Govornmeut for the 
last ten years. Beyond the close of the war I do not propose to go, 
because that is holv ground. The republican party has gone pn, step 
after step, leading first the whites and then the blacks into ditticulties, 
but in every instance they have reaped the advantage. They have at 
leno-th reached a point in their transgressions where the people ot this 
country have issued their summons to bring the transgressors to an 
account. They have gone on with tentative measures to see how tar 
they could test the spirit of the American people, until they have 
finally reached the point where, by the bayonet, a sovereign btate 
has been overthrown. And when charged with the oflense, they an- 
swer bv retaliation, and by confessing the sins of the democratic 
party. ' The republican party had its origin in the institution ot 
slavery ; by slavery it grew and strengthened ; and now it seeks to 



prolong existeace by the carcass of slavery long after it has perished. 
Every struggle to maintain itself is fought over the grave of slavery. 
Like the wary fox, that party when hard pressed returns to the point 
of its origin. 

During this discussion the Senate has been entertained, not to say 
charmed, by the sheet-iron thunder which has constituted the staple 
production of the Senator from Indiana for the last six years on every 
southern question. He has " split the ears of the groundlings " with 
measured and long-drawn agony. He has rung the changes in a 
gamut of two notes, which are murder and fraud, with their appro- 
priate variations, consisting of assassination, killing, butchery, man- 
slaughter, and infanticide, (which last was, no doubt, the attempt at 
killing Kellogg;) while the variations on frauds extend in grade 
from those which are pious to those committed by Kellogg, Pack- 
ard, and Jacques. That honorable Senator will, I am sure, pardon 
me for telling the Senate, that the extent of his scale of subjects, the 
regularity of their succession, the dirge-like solemnity of their pitch, 
and their exceeding similarity at each reproduction, lind a fitting par- 
allel in the select repertory of classical pieces w^hich were ground out 
alternately by the organ-grinder whose only tunes on a two days' 
engagement to furnish music for a dance were, "Old Dog Tray" 
and the "Mulligan Guards." I pray that Senator to vary the per- 
formance. It is too much like the bill of fare which was bacon and 
greens for breakfast, greens and bacon for dinner, and bacon and 
greens for supper. When the press reporters can say, " Senator Mor- 
ton spoke to-day on Louisiana, or Pinch back, or southern outrages ; for 
a full report of which, see his speech delivered four years ago and 
twenty-one times since, verbatim," I feel apprehensive that he may 
lose his reputation for originality. 

The honorable Senator may not be aware of what all others know, 
that his cry of murder has become monotonous and chronic, not to 
say "stale, flat, and unprofitable." The miller soon becomes a sound 
sleeper amidst the clatter of his mill. The residents on Broadway 
grow unconscious of the " rattle over the stony street," and even the 
cry of murder, when the audience know it is only a i^art of the play, 
loses its alarm. Whenever one of the opposition denounces the des- 
potic ti-eatmeut of Louisiana, we as natui-ally expect to hear the cus- 
tomary refrain and epilogue of murder and fraud, as to hear the dox- 
ology at the close of religious worship. 

And yet I would not do the honorable Senator the injustice to say 
that he never varies this melancholy exercise, for there is one other 
object that divides his distinguished sorrow. For over two years he 
has carried almost alone a burden whose weight deterred all friends 
from lending him a sympathetic hand. During that period there has 
been a nondescript person flitting through this Capitol from one wing 
to the other, in rapid succession, claiming at one end of the building 
to be an embassador from a State, and at the other to be a Repre- 
sentative of the people. When he faces from the rotunda toward 
this Chamber, he is a Senator. When he faces toward the Repre- 
sentative Hall, he is a triV)uue of the people. When he is in Louisi- 
ana, he is a governor or a legislator. But he is one and all at one and 
the same time. He is to-day the most elected man on the face of the 
earth, and yet he cannot get an office. The Senator from Indiana, 
fully sympathizing with his melancholy condition, has exhausted all 
his woiaderful resources in the vain endeavor to secure this dove of 
peace a resting-place, that he might be relieved of the labor and bur- 
den of carrying so many commissions. When the Senator has pre- 



sented hiin here, he has been rejected. He would then face about 
and march with him to the House and present him there ; but they, 
too, would not receive their own "man and brother."' Whether the 
Senator has failed to <iet this valuable acquisition off his hands be- 
cause he is suspected of dealing in a spurious article, or the article 
itseK is supposed to contain too much alloy, no one can say. But the 
Senator evidently imagined at the date of this acc^uisitioji that he 
had " found a pearl of great price." I suspeet, however, that he does 
not value it quite as much as he did two years ago. The demand 
has grown dull. The styles have somewhat changed ; and public taste 
has changed likewise: and the Senator's commodity is nothing but the 
stock of two seasons past, and is out of date. But I must not be 
understood as refiectiug ou the character or standing of "the coining 
man," who for two years has burdened the Senator from Indiana as 
the "old man of the sea" rode the weary back of Sinbad the sailor. For 
I cannot withhold my admiration from a man Avho has upset our set- 
tled faith in the motto of Dick Swiveller, that " no obscure individual 
ever set himself up against fate and proved a success." A man who 
could organize a bigger fraud than Warmoth, Packard, and Casey, 
and overcome the brother-in-law of the President, backed by the 
whole strength of Executive patronage in a race for this Senate, 
must be one of jnowe-ss. I do not wonder that the Senator from 
Louisiana, dazzled by his genius and alarmed liy the result of the la.st 
November election, should press for the potent aid which Pinchback 
could render on every call of tlie ayes and noes. It is a needful ex- 
hibition of that unselfish gratitude which is "but a lively sense of 
favors yet to come." 

The charge of murder and frauds is made by the honorable Senator 
from Indiana against his former political friends. " This is the most 
unkindest cut of all." He ought to be generous enongli to be silent, 
even though he may suppose, since his desertion of us, that we still 
possess any of the spirit of lawless men. But if he will not be gener- 
ous, the least he should do is to assume, for the time, such a modicum 
of modesty as to permit the world to doubt, whether all the virtues 
and humanity of the democratic party departed from it in the hem 
of his garments, when he abandoned us to our fate. 

But the Senator from Indiana stands not alone in his charge of 
cruelty and wrong against the Democratic party. The Senator from 
Illinois has also joined in the cry against his former associates with 
all the zeal of a recent convert. We had hoped that he would rest 
content with a proper exhibition of his pious devotion to his new 
allies, and of the miraculous saving grace by which he has been bom 
again, and would have spared us the not unitsual spectacle of young 
ambition kicking at the ladder by Avhich it climbed to glory. But 
our hope was dashed, and we were dismayed when he joined in the 
tintinnabulation of the Senator from Indiana, by beating for two 
mortal dayshis accompaniment on adrj'skull as his kettle-drum, with 
two dry bones for sticks. The symphony was most appropriate, but 
his music, if at all celestial, was only so because he adopted the mode 
of warfare of the ancient Chinese, who rushed on their enemy to 
frighten them by the clatt«r of resounding gongs. It yet remains to 
be determined whether in those two days' conflict he " overcame tlie 
Nervii" by the skillful and energetic rattling of those bones. The 
American people in the main are not of the nervous temperament, 
and were I to venture an opinion in advance of the day in 1876 when 
they shall pass judgment on this administration. I would say that the 
Chinese mode of warfare adopted habitually by the Senator from In- 



6 

diana, and on this special occasiou with lusty sonoroiisuess by the 
Senator from Illinois, has utterly failed to frighten a people risen in 
indignation at the overthrow, by luilitarj' force, of their constitutional 
rights. But, should I be mistaken in this opinion, and the people 
have become terrified by this skeleton exhibition and cry of murder, 
then the empire is at hand ; and the Senator from Illinois may con- 
gratulate himself on his foresight, as Mrs. Toodles congratulated her- 
self on the purchase of the crutches, for having adopted in advance 
of the formal establishment of the empire, and given to the country 
through the Congressional Record, his heraldry and coat of arms, 
consisting of two marrowless thigh-bones crossed and surmounted by 
an empty skull. As all heraldry is symbolic, I read the present de- 
sign to mean that the Senator thereby announces to the world that 
he has smitten his enemy hip and thigh and taken off liis head. 

Certain it is that there is no need for the honorable Senator to file 
a caveat to prevent piracy of his ingenious device and combination. 
His patent-right will never l)e infringed. For no one, not even a 
sawbones — no, not even a coroner, nor a grave-digger, will ever 
claim it as his family escutcheon. I doubt if even the Senator him- 
self will wear it long, provided, like Nossus's shirt, it do not stick 
to him against his will. But, should he stand by his choice, there is 
one addition which I would respectfully suggest to enhance if possi- 
ble the already unparalleled beauty and resistless attractiveness of the 
present device. The addition was suggested by the cruel slaughter 
of his former democratic allies by the Senator in his death's-head 
speech, and by his evident intention to spread terror throughout the 
land among aged women and sucklings and babes. And it is, that 
he will adorn his coat of arms with a tomahawk uplifted, and press 
wide open the jaws of the gaping, chapless, eyeless, noseless skull, so 
the terror of the young and aged maybe greatly heightened by imagin- 
ing that there is an unceasing war-whoop bursting in stentorian vol- 
ume from that grinning vacuum. But, after all, the object of the 
Senator in adorning his remarks with the head and bones may be more 
ingenious than we have'supposed. It is one of the amiable weaknesses 
of man to desire to live in the memory of posterity. This desire 
is the root and spring of all aml)itiou. And it may be the Senator 
intended, that when some Old Mortality shall come to wander through 
that grave-yard of genius — the Congressionax Record — attracted 
by the only tombstone there, he would pause to observe this emblem 
of death, whose utter. dryness so fitly typifies the offspring buried 
beneath, and over which the devoted parent, rejecting the heresy of 
the Sadducees and fondly but vainly trusting in the resuiTcction, has 
erected a monument so appropriate. 

But, Mr. President, lovely as is this tombstone or armorial design, 
as the case may be, of the Senator from Illinois, it is not more admi- 
rable than the line of logic by which he endeavored to excuse or 
justify the military usurpation by the Administration in Louisiana. 
His defense — for be it remembered that the peoi)le have called the 
Administration to the bar of judgment to answer for a gross viola- 
tion of their chartered rights — may be briefly stated thus : He an- 
swers, " We are not guilty, because this is not the first instance of 
military tyranny. in the history of our Government;" second, "If the 
republican party is guilty, then the democratic party is also guilty ;" 
and, thirdly, "If I, as a republican and supporter of the Administra- 
tion am guilty now, it is not the first time I have been guilty, be- 
cause I, as a democrat and supporter of a democratic administration, 
did the same thing in 1856." These premises being solemnly laid 



down, lie proceeds to liis "argal" and by crowuer's quest law of logic 
draws his dednction, that the Administration is not guilty of mili- 
tary usurpation in Louisiana. 

But this happy lino of defense is not surpassed in its non sequiturhy 
the dissimilarity between the historical incidents which he arrays in 
its support, and the one we are now considering. The first he referreil 
us to was the action of General Jackson at New Orleans. General 
Jackson acted just at the close of a great war, when there were ene- 
mies of his country within his camp, and before the order establish- 
ing martial law, to secure a great victory, had been revoked. Presi- 
dent Grant acted when the country is at peace with all foreign powers, 
and when there was no insurrection nor domestic violence. General 
Jackson acted for the good of this whole country. President Grant 
has acted to keep in power one man, who hasbeen declared by a stand- 
ing committee of this Senate and by the honorable Senator'from Illi- 
nois, as a member of that committee, and by the President himself, not 
to be the lawful governor of Louisiana, and to seat republicans who 
by the unanimous report of a committee of the House, composed of 
two republicans and one democrat, were not elected to the Legislature. 
General Jackson acted at a moment of danger to the whole country and 
when the maxim inter anna silent leges is held to be right. President 
Grant acted at a moment of danger to the republican party and in a 
time of peace and on another maxim, which is, " I use the bayonet 
to silence the laws." General Jackson arrested one man. President 
Grant seized and holds to-day, under bayonet law, a whole State. 
Jackson, as soon as the peril to his country was past, when he had 
routed the veteran hosts of Paokenham, laid aside his sword, drop- 
ped his conquering arm, acknowledged his error, bowed his majestic 
head to the law, and paid the penalty imposed by the court from 
his own scanty purse. President Grant, when he had at the point of 
the bayonet triumphantly routed five unoffending and unarmed citi- 
zens who were peacefully insisting on their constitutional rights, 
justifies the act by persisting in the wrong. There is, however, one 
coincidence in the careers of these two distinguished soldiers. It is 
that both were honored by the American people by being twice chosen 
their Chief Magistrate. But, one was chosen after his alleged usurpa- 
tion — the other before. 

The second instance of military tisurpation under democratic rule 
cited by the Senator from Illinois was in the arrest of the fugitive 
slave Burns. This example is more unfortunate for the Senator than 
the first. That was done by a United States marshal under a statute 
of Congress, which was passed to enforce a provision of the United 
States Constitution, and the force employed by the marahal, who had 
been resisted and overcome, was the very kind oi posse comitatus which 
the law of Congress, under which the marshal was acting, authorized 
him to employ. 

The third instance of democratic usurpation cited by the Senator is 
more unfortunate, if i>ossible, than either of the former two. I refer 
to the Topeka Legislature in 185(3. In I^ouisiana the election wa« 
held by the whole people of a State. Whether Louisiana be a sov- 
ereign State or not, I will not now inquire. Whether any State in 
the Union, since the fate of Louisiana, be sovereign or has anyreservefl 
rights is a question of greater pertinence — of much graver doubt. 
But be that as the Administration may determine, we at least have 
supposed, though perhaps delusively, tliat the election held in Louisi- 
ana on the 3d of November last, was held in and by the people of a 
State. The people have always sui^posed, and the Supremo Court 



8 

and the coiuts of all the States (excepting Judge Durell and the 
judges in Louisiana) have uniformly held, that in a State election 
the Federal Government had no control, and that the Legislature of 
each State and not the President, nor the Army, nor any officers in the 
Army, nor a governor, had the exclusive right to determine who were 
elected as members of such Legislature. The pretended election in 
Kansas was held in a Territory over which the Federal Government 
had exclusive jurisdiction and control ; the Legislature of Louisiana 
was elected under the constitution and laws of that State. The 
Topeka Legislature was elected without any authority of law what- 
ever; the Louisiana Legislature was a lawful body. The Topeka Leg- 
islature was not only unlawful but revolutionary ; the members-elect 
of the Louisiana Legislature met in pursuance of law. The Topeka 
Legislature met at a time and place unauthorized by law. 

The Senator was sadly mixed when he was trying to press this ex- 
ample into shape to make it appear analogous to tlie case of Louisi- 
ana. For in one bi'eath he calls the Topeka Legislature that of a 
" free State," and in the next he calls it the Legislature of " an in- 
choate State." What an inchoate State is under our system of Govern- 
ment has never been defined by any lexicography I have ever seen. 
The latest edition of Webster's Dictionary, since the republican party 
came into power, has undergone many changes in its detinitions, and 
this may be one of them. We may have States and " inchoate " 
States, Territories and inchoate Territories. But it may be that the 
bloody ghost of Louisiana rose before the Senator just at that mo- 
ment in his guilty banquet and so paralyzed his sophistry, that the 
imprisoned truth of logic escaped from his restraining lips. For wheu 
he called out the words " inchoate State " he was unconsciously utter- 
ing the name of Louisiana. She is indeed an " inchoate State." She 
is not a territory, for she has the mocking form and semblance of 
a State. She is not a free State, because she is under the military 
heel of one man. Her Legislature is organized by liis command; it 
sits only by bayonet support ; taxes are levied and collected only by 
military power; and she is indeed a State " inchoate." "I thank thee, 
Jew, for teaching me that word." 

But the honorable Senator still laid on, raising his bludgeon (or I 
should say his belaying-pin, as he announced himself in his opeuiug 
sentence as a sailor) high in the air in the midst of the fog which 
by the heat of his own zeal he had raised around him, and like a 
blind Cyclops he began to strike right and left, fore and aft, his friends 
as well as his foes. For he then began to belabor Abraham Lincoln 
for military usurpation committed under his administration. It is 
true that the Senator tried to fasten the guilt on McClellan, because 
he was a democrat. But how feeble the attempt. Mr. Lincoln was 
Commander-in-Chief of the Army, McClellan was his lieutenant and 
acting under his orders. This logic, is on a par with the Senator's 
attempt to convince the American people that the usurpation in 
Louisiana is not the act of Pi'esideut Grant. He says : 

Sheridan had nothing to do with it, Grant had nothinj; to do with it, the Senate 
had nothing to do with it ; but Kellogg must take tin- responsibility of issuing the 
order. There is the responsibility, and there is the wliole ^)f it. Tour denunciation 
of President Grant for using the Army in a legislative bodj' goes fornauglit, for he 
Vnew no more about it than you did until he saw it announced in the public prints. 

Poor Kellogg, he has no friends ! He is kicked by the democrats 
and he is kicked by republicaus ; by the Senator from lUinoiH, by the 
Senator from Indiana, by every Senator on the Committee on Privi- 
leges and Elections ; he is kicked bv the President ; and yet they liold 



9 

him fast in his 8eat, for no other purpose one would suppose, from the- 
way they abuse him, but to kick him. 

But the Senator says " Grant had nothing to do with it." Well, 
let us test the truth of this bold assertion. He says Kellogg issued 
the order for the military to invade the Legislature. What military ? 
Of the United States, of course. Who is Commander-in-Chief of the 
United States Army, Kellogg or Grant ? Who commands De Ti-obri- 
and, Kellogg or Grant? Who commands Sheridan, De Trobriand's 
superior officer, Kellogg or Grant ? Who sent the troops into Louis- 
iana, Kellogg or Grant ? Who keeps them there now, Kellogg or 
Grant ? Ah, Mr. President, this defense is simply pitiable. It would 
•not avail the Senator or do credit to his ingenuity before a justice's 
court, and yet it is gravely presented to the United States Senate. 
The Senator should uot be blamed, however, for giving us nothing 
better. He deserves the same commendation Avhich was bestowed 
on the widow who gave her mite. He has given us uot only the best, 
but all he had. 

But the Senator says that the President knew nothing of the mili- 
tary interference until he saw it announced in the public prints. No 
one supposes he did. When President Grant sent his commission to 
San Domingo he knew nothing of what they had done until they 
returned to Washington. But how did the commission get abroad ? 
Did uot the President send them ? How did the troops get into 
Louisiana and into New Orleans ? Aud why have they been held 
there so long ? But, further, what has been the President's course 
since he knew what Kellogg did with the United States troops ? He 
has ratified every act of Kellogg, be it right or wrong, by permitting 
the troops to hold in statu r/HO the Legislature as orgauized by Kellogg 
only by their assistance. While it is true that President Graut " did 
not know that any such thing was anticipated, and no orders nor 
suggestions were ever given to auy military officers in that State upon 
the subject prior to the occurrence," it is also true from his own 
statement that he sent troops to Louisiana under Kellogg's requisi- 
tion, and allowed them to remain there from September 15 to Janu- 
ary 4, "to render to Kellogg such aid as might become necessary to 
enforce the laws of the State." I shall use this fact for another pur- 
pose after a while, and I quote it here to show that the Senator from 
Illinois is not as candid in his defense of the President as the Presi- 
dent in his own defense. The zeal of the advocate has outstripped 
the desire of his client. 

At this point in the Senator's darkness aud gloom the mist had so 
thickened that it seems he lost his hearing as well as his sight. For 
the Senator from New York, anxiously looking for him, but not being- 
able to see his logical locus in quo and utterly powerless to extricate 
the Senator from his perilous situation, called out to encourage him 
at least by his voice. When The Senator from Illinois, imaginiug 
that McClellan stood before him, was hammering his friend Abra- 
ham Lincoln for the arrest of the Maryland Legislature, the Senator 
from New York suggested to him that " Maryland had uot been de- 
clared in insurrection," and the Senator, clutching at anything for 
help, caught eagerly at the sentence, which came back re-echoed to 
the Senate, "And Maryland had not been declared in secession ; " 
reminding me of the little boy who never learned his lessons, and 
who was asked by his teacher, " What river divides Maryland from 
Virginia?" A young friend sitting behind prompted him aud whis- 
pered, " the Potomac," which the httle idle and confused boy echoed 
back, " The Stomach River, sir!" 



10 

The Senator from CHlifornia sitting near me then generously, but 
most innocently, came to the relief of the Senator from Illinois by 
offering him a copy of the Constitution. The Senator meant well, 
for his countenance betrayed sympathy aud distress, but the aid he 
offered was a cruel piece of irony and satire. He ought to have 
known that the Constitution was the last thing the Senator from 
Illinois desired in his extreme situation. The satire of the proffered 
aid could scarcely be equaled by offering an anchor to a drowning 
man. The Senator from Illinois had uo use for the Constitution at 
that hour. He was trying to save the Administration from con- 
demnation for a violation of that Constitution. " Justice!" said the 
client to his lawyer who said he should have .justice, "that's just- 
what I don't want ; if I get justice I'll be hung." The Senator from 
Illinois understands this case far better than does my friend from 
California. He should have remembered that the Senator from Illi- 
nois had just confe-ssed in open court, that this is the third scrape of 
this kind he has been in, and with his enlarged experience he ought 
to know the kind of defense to be set up. And he does know, as 
shown by the fact that he promptly declined the assistance so kindly 
but innocently offered by the Senator from California. 

The Senator having at this stage of his struggle exhausted his 
own strength and that of his friends who had rushed to his relief, 
fell back as a desperate venture on the statements of Jack Brown, of 
Georgia, and E. M. Kiels, late of Alabama. 

Mr. President, you are no doubt familiar with a historical event 
which occurred in this city during the administration of Presi- 
dent Jackson. A stranger called on that Chief Magistrate, who 
from his personal appearance plainly showed that for worldly goods 
he was much in the same strait that the Senator from Illinois was 
for argument, law, and facts to support his defense of the Adminis- 
tration. On inquiry by the President as to the urgent natvire of hia 
business, he replied that he desired a foreign mission. On being told 
that they were all filled ho asked for a consulship. The same reply 
being made, he asked for a postmaster's position, then for a clerk- 
ship, then for the place of doorkeeper, and all these being de- 
nied, he requested the President to give him a pair of his old breeches. 
The Senator from Illinois has at length got down to the pair of old 
breeches. 

" What a fall was there, my countrymen." On reflection, how- 
ever, the Senator did not fall at that moment. He was already down, 
and it would be more historical to say that on Brown and Keils he 
flattened out from absolute exhaustion. The honorable Senator set 
out with the high-sounding declaration that he would discuss this 
question "fairly, candidly, and truthfully, and from a just, honest, 
and legal stand-point." From such a thundering index we were de- 
lighted with the anticipation of a rich repast in the coming volume. 
Expectation stood on tip-toe, and we chided the too sluggish mo- 
ments because they kept us from our feast of reason. But was ever 
realization so unlike anticipation ? Instead of reason we had decla- 
mation ; instead of the ascending we were borne on the descending 
scale; instead of analogues to support his assumptions we had pro- 
logue and epilogue with argument omitted ; instead of facts we had 
rumors and fancies ; instead of being luminous the Senator grew vo- 
luminous. He foil back, or came down, down from his lofty begin- 
ning until he was glad to avail himself of anything, even of the 
wretched comfort to be drawn fiom the statements of Jack Brown 
and E. M. Keils. 



11 

I 
Having said so miicb as to the character of the Senator's argument, 
I shall now notice very briefly the kind of evidence which he ad- 
duced in its support. The charge against the President is that he 
has grossly violated the Constitution by putting the military over 
the civil power, and the Senator from Illinois sprang forward and 
took the whole case on his broad shoulders. He opened the case for 
the defense by producing a print of a skull and two bones to justify 
the President for dispersing a State Legislature and proceeded to say : 

Now, I 8tat« it a,s a fact, and I appeal to the Senator from Louisiana to s.iy 
whether or not I state truly, that on the nijjlit before the election in Louisiana 
notices were posted all over that country on the doors of the colored republicans 
and the white republicans. 

The Senator in his place states it as a fact, not as information — but 
as a foci — that the death's-head image wa.'^' posted on the doors of 
white and black republicans all over Louisiana. And he appealed in 
the same breath to the Senator from Louisiana to say whether or not 
"he states truly ;" but the Senator from Louisiana opened not his 
mouth. And when the Senator from Louisiana refuses to open his 
mouth, on any pretext, in accusation of the democrats of his own State, 
we know he is only constrained by an attack of hopeless lockjaw. 

The honorable Senator states it as a fact that this charming symbol 
of peace was posted " all over" Louisiana. He is the only witness on 
this point. Yet I believe he was not in Louisiana at that time. How 
does he get his information ? From whom ? How doe« he know the 
statement to be a fact? We are not allowed to doubt the statement, 
because when a Senator rises and states without qualification that he 
knows a thing to be true, to be a fact, we are, by cotirtesy, concluded. 
And a^s the Senator has told us he never " withdraws a statement," 
that "he is not of that kind," we must take it as true that this pro- 
moter of the elective franchise was posted "all over" Louisiana, and 
even on the door of Kellogg, who, we all know, required no intimi- 
dation. 

The joy which I imagine the Senator felt in presenting the strange 
device of this unaneled skull and these thigh-bones to the Senate, is 
only comparable to that of Mr. Pickwick when he produced before 
the Pickwick club his treasured hieroglyphic stone, which on being 
interpreted was simply "Bill Stumps — his mark; "and the Senator 
. was as profoundly convinced of wide-spread death and murder in 
Louisiana by the figures "2x6" written under these bones, as was 
Sergeant Buzfuz that Mr. Pickwick had made a violent assault on 
the affections of Mrs. Bardell, because he addressed to her the tender 
and endearing words, "chops and tomato-sauce." 

The next fact which the honorable Senator from Illinois brought 
forward to show that President Grant had not been guilty of usur- 
pation was a certificate that a barber was a member of a democratic 
club in New Orleans. 

This is a fact produced by the Senator from Illinois ; and I do not 
blame him for producing it, because it was probably the best he had. 

It seems from this, that there was one Charles Diirassa, a colored 
Figaro of New Orleans, a lineal descendant of a craft whose pleasure 
and profit were once measured by the quantity of blood they drew 
from their fellow-creatures. The ancestors were no doubt the found- 
ers of the Ku-Klux Klan. How natural then, the Senator from Illi- 
nois might say, for their descendants to join that Klan. But the de- 
scendants, having grown more humane, have, of late, ceased to grow 
fat on the plethora of their neighbors' veins, and derive their 
subsistence now bv relieving their fellow-man of an excess of hair. 



12 

But as tlie said Durassa. — ■wlio had an eye to the main chance — could 
not find on the scalps and barren cheeks of his own race, sufficient 
hair to whet even the appetite of his Sheffield blade, much less to 
appease his own, and not being honored with an invitation by Kel- 
logg to share in the more substantial spoils he was gathering from 
the whites of Louisiana, he fixed his hungry gaze on the Caucasian 
Absoloms of New Orleans, and determined to put himself in the line 
to poll their heads. To this end he adopted the worldly wisdom of the 
" scurvy politician" and joined the paying side, and received his cer- 
tificate of membership, which the Senator from Illinois has construed 
to be a notice to the Angel of Death abroad in Louisiana, like the 
blood sprinkled on the doors at the Passover of the Jews in Egypt, 
to let Durassa live. Tha shrewdness of the barber, Durassa, though 
not sufficient to excite the envy, is still enough to challenge the ad- 
luiration, of the republican party. He knew there were no men in 
Louisiana with manhood enough to wear beards except the demo- 
crats, and that to set up a sho]) to shave his own brother would be 
a device not only entirely republican, but as absurd as to establish a 
ship-yard in the middle of the great Sahara Desert, and almost as 
hopeless as to expect peace and prosperity in the United States under 
the present Administration. But even this sharp resort to earn a 
penny is paraded before the country by the Senator from Illinois as 
proof of murder and death to all Republicans who could not obtain 
a like certificate. The Senator's ingenuity is even more creditable 
than the cunning of Durassa. 

The next fact stated by the Senator to prove that the President was 
not guilty of usurpation in Louisiana was the kidnapping of a repub- 
lican member-elect of the Legislature, called by one man, Cousin, and 
by another, Cousinier. "And yet," says he, " these kidnappers and 
murderers are not to be denounced in this Chamber. These are the 
gentlemen of Louisiana I presume." No ; the kidnappers and murder- 
ers of Louisiana are no more the gentlemen of Louisiana than they are 
of Illinois. I will tell the Senator who is the kidnapper and murderer 
in Louisiana. I would not say he is an Illinois gentleman, but I will 
say that he is a man from Illinois. The kidnapper and miu'derer iu 
Louisiana is Kellogg, a carpet-bagger from Illinois. Kellogg, in the 
vigorous expression of the Senator fi'om Connecticut [Mr. Ferry] 
used on yesterday, " with falsehood in his hand and perjury on his 
lips," kidnapped the gubernatorial chair ; in tlie language of Pi'esident 
Grant, by a "gigantic fraud," he kidnapped the Legislature of that 
State in 1873 ; and he has by Federal troops and the fraud and perjury 
of his returning board, kidnapped the Legislature of 1875. As to who 
is the murderer of Louisiana, I say that the man who inaugurated 
these wrongs upon the people of Louisiana ; the man who continues 
these wrongs; the man who summons to his aid the military power 
of the United States for the purpose of perpetrating these crimes, is 
himself responsible for every act of violence committed by the white 
people of that State in resistance to these wrongs, and the blood of 
every man who has fallen in this righteous struggle is on the garments 
of the usurping, perjiu-ed Kellogg. 

But, sir, this is aside from the point and from my line of discussion. 
The Senator from Illinois said that Coiisin was kidnapped by demo- 
crats to keep him away from the organization of the Legislature. 
I wish it to be borne in mind that the Senator stated this as a fact ; 
not a surmise, not an inference, not upon information, but as a fact. 
I will leave this issue of fact between the Senator and two other re- 
publicans who are members of tlie House, and who went to Louisiana 



13 

and examined into the question as to wlietlier Cousin had been kid- 
napped by the democrats. I refer to their report, page 10. Mr. Foster 
and Mr. Phelps, to say nothing of the democrat upon this committee, 
make this statement : 

The repiiblicans claimed that one of their members, A. G. Cousin, had been kid- 
naped and forcibly taken to a district parish to prevent his presence at the organi- 
zation of the house. 

Tour committ.ee was about to investigate this charge, when in public session it 
was claimed by the democratic counsel and admitted by the republican counsel 
that the arrest was under legal process and by the hands of the sherilf. It was 
further claimed, and not denied, that the pri\'lleges of his office did not shield him 
from arrest. The charge was embezzlement. 

This statement of a republican committee was in the possession of 
this body and I suppose was lying on the desk of the Senator from 
Illinois at the time he made this statement. 

Just here I will state that the Senator from New York, [Mr. Conk- 
ling,] in his speech the other day, made the same statement. He 
stated as a fact, that Cousin was kidnapped by democrats for the 
express purpose of keeping him out of the Legislature. The latter 
made certain statements as facts which I have found nowhere else 
except in the paper to which I now make reference. If the Senator 
from New York relied upon any other evidence than this to which I 
now call attention, I should be glad if he would say so. I call the 
attention of the Senate to tliis paper to show, that the Senator from 
New York, in his zeal in defense of the Administration — no, Mr. Presi- 
dent, I witlidraw that statement — tlie honorable Senator from New 
Y'ork in his speech expressly disclaimed that he was defending the 
Administration. He said : 

I do not appear for General Emory. I am not his attorney of record, or his coun- 
sel, nor is he triable hero. I do not come to champion, justify, or befriend either 
of these persons. I do not appear to vindicate the President of the United States. 
He needs no vindication. He was a stranger to the whole proceeding. I do not 
appear to champion the republican party. 

It is no part of my purpose, I repeat, to vindicate Governor Kellogg. Much h.as 
been done in Louisiana, fonufrlv and lately, on both sides, which I cannot approve. 
If my wish could jirevail, iniquity, wherever found, would be chastised and eradi- 
cated. I siH'ak only for comuion sense and common right. For this purpo.se I 
have nothing to do with Mr. Kellogg, except that he was acting governor of Lou- 
isiana. 

I therefore withdraw my remark, that the Senator from New York 
was defending the Administration. I have yet to ascertain whom he 
was defending, because tlie list that has been furnished by him, it 
seems to me, covers all parties and persons that might by possibility 
have been concerned in that transaction. The document to which I 
call attention is among those furnished by the President in his mes- 
sage to the Senate, and was sent to him by General Sheridan. It is 
dated January 7, 187.5. I call particular attention to tlie fact that it 
has no signature. It is waste iiaper, bearing no name, and purports 
to be a liearsay statement of the circumstances of tlie arrest of Cousiu. 
The Senator from New York used it in his argument, and on its au- 
thority asserted as a fact, that Cousin was kidnapped by democrats to 
keep him away from the organization of tlie Legislature. The Senator 
did this witli tlie words "no signature'' at the end of this anonymous 
hearsay statement under his eyes. 

The paper begins : 

About ten o'clock Thursday morning, A. .T. Cousin and his father arrived in this 
city from Covington, Saint Tammany Parish. His statement is as follows. 

Mr. Nobody says that Mr. Cousin said, he was kidnapped, and on 
the autliority of the hearsay statement of a man in a mask, or of no 



14 

man at all, the Senator from New York places his declaration, that 
Cousin was kidnapped by democrats. 

The next fact relied on by the Senator from Illinois in justifica- 
tion of the overthrow of the State government in Louisiana is, that 
violence has for years prevailed in that State. He stated without 
qualification that thirty-five hundred murders have been committed 
in that State within "the last few years." And he says he makes 
this statement on the authority of General Sheridan. Well, the Sen- 
ator does not withdraw his statements, as he is " not of that kind." 
But this is all one to me. I will simply put the statement of Gen- 
eral Sheridan, who is the Senator's authority on this question of fact, 
over against the statement of the Senator, and leave them to settle 
the question. I quote from General Sheridan's report as embodied 
in the Senator's own speech : 

Since the year 1866 nearly thirty-five linntlrecl persons, a sn'eat majority of whom 
"were colored men, have been killed and wounded in this State. In 1868 the official 
record shows that eighteen hundred and eighty -four were killed and wounded. 

* * * There is ample evidence, however, to show that more than twelve hun- 
dred persons have been killed and wounded during this time on account of their 
political sentiments. 

So it seems that General Sheridan did not authorize the Senator 
to say 3, .500 persons had been murdered. He said that number 
within eight years, since 1866, had been killed and wounded. Gen- 
eral Sheridan did not say, as the Senator does, that that number was 
killed and wounded for political oiiinions. General Sheridan does 
not say, that they were " all republicans, not one of them a democrat." 
How the honorable Senator, who never withdraws — is " not of that 
kind" — and General Sheridan will settle this slight discrepancy in 
statement, I cannot see, unless General Sheridan will withdraw and 
adopt the Senator's statement as his own. 

The Senator, having finished his raid on Louisiana, passed over to 
Alabama and Georgia. And as a specimen of the material on which 
he built his castle in the air, I refer the Senate to his statement to 
show that intimidation of republicans is practiced there. He said that 
in the fonrth congressional district, at the last election, only eight- 
een republicans voted out of a population of over 64,000, while over 
9,000 democrats voted out of a white population of 67,000, and that 
only twelve republicans voted in the eighth district of a negro popu- 
lation about equal to that in the fourth. I must do the Senator the 
justice to say, that he was willing to stand corrected when my col- 
league told him there was no republican candidate in either district. 
But my purpose in citing this instance is to show the kind of facts by 
which he was supporting his charge of intimidation, that we and the 
country may see how utterly fanciful they are when the truth is 
known. Ah uno crimlnc disce omnes. And I will observe here that the 
Senator fnrai New York [Mr. Conkling] and the Senator from Ohio 
[Mr. Sherman] both reiterated the error of the Senator from Illi- 
nois as to the killed and wounded as stated by General Sheridan. 



Frldmi, February 26, 1875. 
The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, having nnder consideration the bill 
(H. R. No. 79C) to protect all citizens in their civil and legal rights — 

Mr. NORWOOD said : 

Mr. President: When I suspended my remarks the other day I 
was reviewing the speech of the honorable Senator from Illinois, 
[Mr. Logan.] I was endeavoring to show that he had made state- 



15 

iricnts in liis review of the causes of the trouble in Louisiana which 
were not sustained Ly the record. 

The Senator from Illinois, in his anxiety to make out a case ajiainst 
the people of the South, came down to the statements of Jack I3rown 
and E. M. Keils. I know the gentleman, Mr. Brown, and know 
nothing against his personal ch.aracter. I do not know Mr. Keils, but 
I know he was judge of the city court in Eufaula, Alabama, and re- 
signed to avoid impeachment on many grave charges of corruption 
in office. My object in referring to their statement is to show the 
character of facts which are relied on by the Senator from Illinois, to 
prove that President Grant has not been guilty of usurpation in 
Louisiana. 

Here is a specimen taken from the letter of Jack Brown : 

At midnight after my nomination scores and scores of democrats came to my 
hotel and serenaded me 'with tin pans, bass-drnms, tin horns, pieces of old sheet- 
iron, &c., applying to me every kind of insulting epithets. The people were per- 
mitt'Od thus to insult justice and riglit undisturbed by a vigilant police, and the 
next day were discharged by the mayor of the city when aiTaigned for disorderly 
conduct. On the same night these democrats went to the house of B. F. Bell, a re- 
publican, with their tin pans and other discordant instruments, serenaded and 
abused him for being a damned radical, in the presence and bearing of a sick wife. 

Again he says : 

In the city of Americus, where. I live, there was but one place of voting. Th« 
ballots were handed to managers through a window. In front of this window the 
colored voters formed a line and stooil throughout the entire day like a stone wall, 
each one waiting for his turn to vote. The democrat.s did everything in their 
power to break tiieir line and scatt<>r them. For instanco, they would go amimg 
them putting tobacco smoke in their faces, snatching tickets from them, throwing 
cayenne pepper among them, persuading, begging, and trying to bribe them to 
vote the democratic ticket. At least half of the colored voters were challenged, 
the challengers asking all kinds of sillv questions, such as "Are yon old enough to 
vote? " when perhaj)S the voter was fifty years old ; " Have you paid your tax? " 
when the voter actually had his tax-receipt in his hand ; " Haven't yom got some 
other name? " and other foolish questions. 

While the Senator from Illinois was thus presenting the case of the 
South to the country, I was thinking that he would have done well 
had he turned his face toward his own State instead of toward 
Louisiana, for it happened that just at the time he was addressing* 
the Senate, Governor Beveridge of Illinois was making aiii)lication 
to the Legislature of that State to make an appropriation of $10,000 
to assist him in suppressing an incipient rebellion in Woodson County 
^hich was formerly the residence of the Senator from Illinois. The 
turbulent spirit in that county had risen so high as to override the 
civil authorities ; and the governor of his own State, while the Sen- 
ator was here enlightening the country as to the condition of the 
South, and charging us with violence and the commission of crime, 
was unable without the assistance of the Legislature to suppress 
crime and violence in Illinois. 

But, Mr. President, there is no community, there is no society, there 
is no deliberative body that does not have its Mrs. Jelleby. You 
will tind Mrs. Jelleby everywhere. She is personified in almost every 
assembly. Mrs. Jelleby had her Borrioboola-Gha. She must send 
assistance to the Africans abniad. The poor, the helpless at home 
received no commiseration from her, but all her pliilanthropy and 
her devotion to human rights was expended upon Borrioboola-Gha, 
somewhere in the midst of Africa; and here we have Mrs. Jelhiby 
over again. Wliile the people of every northern State, while the 
whites are being ground by poverty, all the sympathy and all the 
philanthropy of their Senators here have been expended ujton the 
negroes in the Soutli. 



16 

Mr. President, it -would be well, if some attention was devoted to 
their own people. The poor they have with them always, and while 
the poor are suffering, while the finances of the country are de- 
pressed, while we have been brought to the strait in which we are by 
a republican administration, the wrongs and the evils that their own 
people suffer are lost sight of and they, forsooth, must devote all their 
talents, and waste the public time here that might be devoted to an 
alleviation of the condition of their poor, in considering the condition 
of the negro. 

Referring again, for a moment, to the statement of facts made by 
the Senator from Illinois, and which I have been reviewing, I ask, is 
it not lamentable when a Senator, one to whom the people look for 
light, for information, for guidance, will, for partisan purposes, to 
support a bad cause and to defend a defenseless case, libel the white 
people of a whole State — of a large section of the Union — as murder- 
ers, assassins, and banditti on rumors reaped from the air on which 
they grow, or on a statement of facts which when touched vanish like 
bubbles? This is a fair illustration of the justice which the leaders 
of the republican party mete out to the South. This is the quality of 
evidence on which we are arraigned without warrant and condemned 
without hearing. This is the kind of evidence — and I wish the fair- 
minded, true-hearted, honest republicans in the North to hear it — 
with which their leaders deceive and mislead them ; arouse their pre- 
judices against us who are one with them in race, hopes, interest, 
patriotism, and destiny. This is the evidence on which their leaders 
reconstruct States, disorganize labor, embroil society, foment war 
between the races, drive northern capital from the South, destroy 
the South as a market for the products of their factories, their looms, 
their furnaces, and fields. Such evidence would not be received by 
Justice Shallow in a caiise between man and man on an issue involving 
the life of a dbg. But the leaders of the republican party receive i t, and 
on it base legislation palpably unconstitutional to create strife between 
whites and blacks and to furnish fresh cause for further aggression. 
On such evidence and by such legislation they are widening the 
breach between the sections which have l)een honestly struggling 
for nine years of grief, to reunite in the cordial bonds of one harmo- 
nious brotherhood. 

But the Senator from Illinois, having finished his discussion of law 
and facts, gracefully swept away into the region of poesy. 

With "most excellent fancy" he delighted the Senate with a pict- 
ure of a gallant ship scudding before the gale with sails all full, 
pennant flying at the mast-head, and bearing, like a ricli argosy, her 
precious freight of the Constitution and the hopes of a happy people. 
I listened with a pleasure not unmingledwith some apprehension for 
his own safety. I feared he had launched a craft too light to live in 
such a heavy sea. 

The old ship which he described is manned by the Administration. 
Her captain, slumbering in his cabin and never looking out to mark 
the weather or to watch for danger, had left the ship in command of 
his lieutenants, Kellogg, Packard, and Durell, who reported every- 
thing lovely, and all clear ahead. The cliart — the Constitution — had 
been laid aside and was never consulted. While the captain slept, 
the officers and crew caroused. But suddenly the old ship struck, and 
the Administration, seeing their danger, gave the signal of distress. 
And then it was, the Senator from Illinois rigged his craft and put out 
from shore to the rescue of his friends. It was a right gallant act; 
for while " it is decorous and sweet for one's country to die," it re- 



quires a marvelous degree of heroism to rush cm cortaiu death to 
save a man whose friendship, at best, is of doubtful assurance. But 
soon a fog gathered round about that daring sailor, and the harder ho 
pulled, and the farther he went, the denser grew the fog. His friends 
on shore became alarmed, for they saw that he was heading on fearful 
breakers, while the sailor in happy innocence was alone unconscious 
of his peril. Soon he was lost to sight, and like the " babes in the 
wood," he began to move in a circle, for the fog was so dense that, 
though amidships, he could see neither stem nor stern of his own 
eraft. I>ut at last ho struck on a rock and for two days hung sub- 
pendod, and as the fog for a moment lifted, the wistful faces of friends 
showed too plainly that they were painfully suspended on the "rag- 
ged edge of anxiety " for his fate. As the little craft of this advent- 
urous sailor there heaved and pitched and thumped and bumped, his 
situationand impending fate suggested to my mind the foundering of 
a Mississippi scow, as witnessed and immortalized by a western poet, 
who sang in description of her wreck — 

She hove and sot and sot and liovo, 

And high her rudder flung ; 
And every time she sot and hove 
A worser leak she sprung. 

[Laughter.] 

But the honorable Senator — I beg pardon, the courageoiia sailor — 
after struggling and tugging for a while to extricate himself, and 
blowing his fog-horn for two days to warn his friends that he was 
lost, and finding that there was no hope of relief, heroically resolved 
ou a sensational farewell, and charging himself with a bomb-shell of 
rhetoric, he blew himself to pieces with a dash of spray and a deto- 
nation which would have aroused Neptune to arms in defense of his 
invaded realms. 

The honorable Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Pease] has also paid 
his distinguished consideration to the State of^Georgia. Mistaking 
perspiration for inspiration, as some are wont to do who seek to soar, he 
labored for two days to give the world assurance that his hind-sight 
is quite as good as his foresight, and to tell us a part of what he does 
not know. Ah, what a work of supererogation ! Had the honorable 
Senator attempted to tell us what he knows, there might have been 
a saving of much valuable time and printer's ink. Would he had 
done so. But he saw fit to open his budget of fables and to defame 
a people whom he does not know. These people are my constituents, 
and the constituents of — no, I cannot say that, as I do not know who 
are the constituents of the honorable Senator from Mississippi. I 
presume, from his abuse of them, they are certainly not the white 
citizens of that State. If they are not, then his constituents must 
consist of the only other classes in the Stat« — the negroes and the 
carpet-baggers. Of the first class I have nothing to say. For that 
people, in the main, I have great respect and entertain the kindest 
feelings. They are naturally kind, docile, tractable, and faithful. 
But they are ignorant, superstitious, and clannish. And from these 
qualities spring the dangers to themselves and to the native white 
people of the South. They are pipes ou whose stops any knave can 
play. 

They are incomparably the more respectable of the Senator's con- 
stituents. And yet I fear the negroes of Mississippi arc not up to the 
standard of loyalty which makes a citizen of the South respectable. 
I fear they, too, are growing slightly rebellious. There are ominous 
indications that thev are becoming a little select m their society 
2 k 



18 

of late, and it may be tbat Congress will have to reconstruct them; 
for when the honorable Senator called and cried aloud, '• Let us have 
Pease," they rebelliously stiffened their necks and replied, "We pre- 
fer to have Bruce." There is no accounting for taste, even that of 
our colored fellow-citizens. They are wonderful imitators of the 
Caucasian race, and we know that there is a strong and constant 
tendency in our own race to choose, in business affairs and in social 
relations, the best there is at hand. The negroes of Mississippi may 
not be an exception to this rule. 

Further than this I do not propose to follow the Senator from Mis- 
sissippi. I would as soon attempt to seriously discuss the truth or 
falsehood of the stories of Scheherezade in the Arabian Nights Enter- 
tiiinments, as the myths which make up that Senator's speech. 

But, Mr. President, during the progress of this discussion the hon- 
orable Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Boutwell] addressed the 
Senate, and I must express the pain that I felt at the words that fell 
from his lips. When the Senator from North Carolina, [Mr. Ransom,] 
with his heart full of devotion to the Union, to law and order, told you 
the true condition and feeling of the southern people, and assured you 
that they, too, are true to the Union, the Senator from Massachusetts, 
even while the spell of the eloquent words of my friend still held us 
like the enchantment of a delightful dream, arose and not only rejected 
the assurances, but said he could " observe elements of danger in the 
speech which, if not removed from the minds of the people of the South, 
will end in civil war." The war, sir, which will result from the senti- 
ments uttered by the Senator from North Carolina would indeed be 
civil, very civil. It would be a war of competing looms, a war of 
rival factories, for commercial mastery, of scholar's for ascendency in 
the field of letters, of mechanism and of mind. And the influence 
which would animate the combatants to glorious deeds would not 
descend upon them from the angry face of fiery, bloody Mars, but it 
would come as an inspiration, with the voice of " peace on earth, good 
will toward men," from the risen Star of Bethlehem. But let the 
views of the Senator from Massachusetts come into active operation, 
and the war would not be qnite so civil. It would be, perhaps, of a 
elass in which the Senator might prefer to occupy his seat in this 
Chamber rather than to buckle on his sword and move to the front 
as the appointed agent to enforce by compulsion quiet and harmony 
among the contending forces. 

The Senator seems to be perfectly convinced that the South can 
never enjoy peace until " the whites and the blacks are compelled to 
go to the same schools, sit upon the same forms, accept the same 
teachers, and study the same books." This may be true. The people 
of the South have had no peace for forty years on account of the 
negro. It may be possible that the Senator is right in his opinion 
that we shall never have peace until we " sit upon the same forms " 
with the uegro. He has made other wonderful discoveries be- 
fore, I am at a loss whether to admire him more as a humanitarian 
philosopher, or as an exploring astronomer. As an astronomer, he, 
.about six years ago, while jx'ering through his immense telescope, 
discovered " a hole in the sky," and, singular enough, that hole was 
in the southern sky. And the Senator now, as a moral philosopher, 
as a humanitarian, has discovered " a hole in the sky " of southern 
society. It stretches wide between the constellations of Ham and 
Shem, and as the honorable Senator, like nature, abhors a vacuum, 
he now proposes to fill up this hole in southern society by drawing 
these recalcitrant, repelling, social elements together. He proposes to 



19 

caiitiire them with a lasso, drag thein hnnianely to the same school- 
room, tie them on the same forms, lash their arms together to hold 
the same book, fix their eyes on the same page, make their eyeballs 
stationary, and then, by some patent process as yet nuknown'to any- 
one except the inventor of this exquisite machinery for the propaga- 
tion of knowledge and peace among men, to wind up their brains 
like eight-day clocks, and set their tongues, like pendulums, in 
motion, to tick out learning in harmonious measure. [Laughter.] 

But the honorable Senator, though not very happy in imparting 
to our minds any new discoveries in social science, did inform us of 
a fact which to all enlightened men on both hemispheres, and espe- 
cially to the people of Massachusetts, must be news indeed. In pre- 
senting his own views of the Constitution, liberty, and the Union in 
their harmonious relations to each other, the thought seems to have 
broken in on the Senator's mind, that a critical reader might discover 
some discrepancy between the sentiments he was expressing and 
those which, as a nation's oracles, were uttered and impressed on the 
American heart for forty years by Daniel Webster. And the ingen- 
ious Senator saw no escape from the grasp of his formidable antago- 
nist except to slay him in cold blood ; and accordingly he astonished 
the civilized world by the announcement, for the first time made, that 
Daniel Webster had fallen, and that, too, by his own hand. The 
honorable Senator informed us that on the 7th of March, 1850, " in 
the rock and tumult of those times he (Daniel Webster) felt that con- 
cessions must be made ; he yielded and fell." 

If it be true that Daniel Webster fell, then let the world wear 
mourning ! If it be possible that Daniel Webster deserted the cause 
of liberty, who can ever have faith again ? If the righteous could 
not be saved, where shall the ungodly appear? No, sir; Daniel 
Webster "still lives." His fall would have shaken the continent 
with a vibration as great as that from an earthquake. Daniel Web- 
ster fallen ! As well might a Persian have attempted to persuade 
the Greeks that Jupiter had fallen from Olympus, as the Senator 
to satisfy Americans, that Daniel Webster fell away from the Con- 
stitution. We would as soon expect to hear that the brightest star 
in the heavens had madly shot from its appointed orbit. No, sir ; the 
Senator must be laboring under some cruel delusion. He must at 
some time have seen the little finger of that mighty intellectual Sam- 
son, in horizontal repose, and looking up at it from his stand-point, 
have believed it to be the prostrate form of its giant owner. If the 
Senator will graciously permit one so humble as myself to turn his 
eye for a moment to that field of learning over which, in violation of 
the fourteenth amendment, according to his own construction, he has 
a chartered monopoly, I will remind him that astronomers tell us 
there have been stars whicli .were ages ago consumed by the inten- 
sity of their own heat, and that their light is still streaming, and will 
continue for centuries to pour, in undimmed effulgence upon the earth. 
And the light of the bright mind of Daniel Webster, though the orb 
itself from which it beamed be quenched in the darkness of the 
grave, still illumines and will continue to illumine the pathway of 
man, until the earth itself shall be rolled away as a scroll. 

But, sir, I have some views of my own which I desire to express, and 
I cannot, therefore, consume anymore time in replying to the speeches 
which have been made in defense of I^resident Grant. And I will say 
licro that it is not my purpose or desire to retort on any Senator by 
using epithets, or by the attempt to disgrace or defame or bring into 
disrepute the people of any State in this Union. I am not one of 



20 

those who bclIoTe that all the virtue of our race, all the statemau 
ship, all the trne elemeuts of civilization, belong to their State or 
section of the Union. And when I hear an American from one sec- 
tion accusing the citizens of another section of all manner of crime, 
and claiming by inference if not in terms, superiority for himself and 
his constituents over all other Americans, and of course over all the 
rest of mankind, I at once susi)ect that bis education has been neg- 
lected and that he should be placed under a tutor and made to 
travel. He may know something of books ; is no doubt thoroughly 
familiar with the tenets of the Pharisees, but his subjective knowl- 
edge is lamentably delicient. He knows nothing of himself or of his 
fellow-man. He either has not read the history of the race to which 
he belongs, or, reading it, he has not seen its philosophic teachings, and 
has only retained its dry and useless facts. He is but a walking 
hartus sk^us, bearing in his memory only the skeleton of history with- 
out its life and spirit. 

But I cannot believe — I wish I could — that the leaders of the re- 
publican party are ignorant of the philosophy of history, of the fact 
that the laws which govern the moral are as fixed and unchangeable 
as those which control the physical world. I wish I could believe 
they do not know that human nature works with unvarying regular- 
ity nnder the same circumstances. It would be charitable to think 
so, but we cannot so believe. The Senator from Indiana has re- 
minded us during this debate, that human nature is the same every- 
where and at all times. He knows, then, that like causes operating 
on mankind always produce like results. He knows that a sense of 
wrong begets resentment. Ho knows that a sujierior race will never 
tamely submit to the enforced dominion of an inferior race. He 
knows that a former master will not cheerfully take the subordinate 
place of servant to his former slave. He knows that iutelligence, and 
the manly pride which is but the consciousness of superiority in intel- 
lect, culture, social position, and in all the elements which make up true 
manhood, have never yielded without resistance to l)e governed by an 
ignorant, semi-barbarous tribe. He knows, too, that such a state of 
things is in violation of the spirit and genius of American civiliza- 
tion, and has no parallel oven in the most despotic and tyrannical 
governments of ancient or modern times. But wo all know, that all 
these monstrous wrongs and a thousand more have been forced upon 
the people of the Soutli by the republican partv for eight years gone 

I have no hope that anything I can say will reach the hearts of the 
leaders of that party. Their motto, if we may judge by their acts 
and legislation, is " We will rnle or ruin." They look to but one end, 
that is to perpetuate their power. But there is a court of appeal, 
which is the judgment of the Americart people, and to that I appeal 
for justice to all sections and all races. And to this end I shall now 
for a fewminutes review the course pursued by the I'cpublican party 
toward the South ever since the close of the late war between the 
North and South. 

That war, sir, was fought on a principle. Its origiu was in a dif- 
ference of opinion on the right construction of the Constitution. We 
of the South, honestly believing that rights which we held were 
guaranteed by that instrument, could not be preserved in the Union, 
sought to secure them under another and au independent govern- 
ment. We struck no blow at the existence of the Federal Govern- 
ment, and so impartial history will pronounce its verdict. But we 
all know the result. When the war closed, we laid down our arms. 



21 

weut peaceably to our homes, aud. set to work. The scene was sad 
beyond the power of mortal pen to tell. Two billions of prop- 
erty in slaves had vanished in a night. More than another billion 
had crnmbled under tlio iron tread of war. Hundreds of millions 
more invested in confederate bonds were swept away in a breath. 
Many millions more of confederate treasury notes perished in the 
same instant. Besides all this, nearly every planter was in debt, and 
his land which in the main was all that was left of his estate, was 
covered by mortgage. Labor was disorganized. Negroes, elated by 
freedom, like children by new toys, played and danced and loitered. 
The white people were disarmed, but negroes were allowed to have 
arms because they were pronounced loyal. Farming utensils had 
been destroyed, stock had been used up in the army, and cattle 
largely consumed for commissary supplies. Such is but a very meager 
statement of facts setting forth our financial and social condition. 
Of our untold sorrows, of homes desolated by death; of ghostly chim- 
neys that alone marked the spot where the mansion of opulence, re- 
finement, and culture had stood ; of the graves destined to be leveled 
by time and nature's pelting elements, because the surviving kin, so 
rich in love, were too poor in purse to erect an humble slab to mark 
the spot where all they cherished in life was sleeping; of the wealthy 
who in the sweet spring-time of 1865 awoke to the jioverty of the 
manger and rose to wander in woe and without a home, till the kind 
hand of the hermit Death shall lead them to his welcome abode — of 
these and much more I shall not speak. They have a sacredness over 
which pride and manhood keep eternal watch. They are all our own. 
They are issues of the war which wo accepted ; and the same man- 
hood which met the embattled legions of the North without dismay, 
will cloak our private griefs without repining. 

But under all these discouragements, all this poverty and insolv- 
ency, up and out from the dark and bitter waters we moved once 
more to the shore and met Fate face to face and closed in for an 
almost hopeless struggle. 

It was then that the President of the United States issued his 
proclamation th.at we should rise and rehabilitate the Southern States 
and return to the enjoyment of the rights which the Constitution 
guaranteed to every State. We held conventions, abolished slavery, 
reorganized our governments, and elected Legislatures and members 
of Congress. Throughout the years 1BG5 and 18GG there was but little 
disturbance between the two races. General Grant, who had been 
sent by the President to ascertain the condition of affairs in the 
South, reported, in December, 1865, that quiet prevailed and that 
the intelligent, controlling citizens accepted the situation in good 
faith. 

And just here let me remark that at that hour the republican party 
held in its hands the grandest opportunity that has ever been seized 
or dropped by any king, monarch, ruh^r, or party known in history. 
A spirit of magnanimity which would have required no sacrifice of 
advantage from the war, nor the surrender of any princijile of good 
government, w^ould have won the southern heart, would have given 
that party legitimate control of the intellect and patriotism of every 
Southern State, and have continued their rule for at least another 
generation. 

When the Southern States liad reorganized ami elected their Sena- 
tors and Representatives, and they came here and applied for admis- 
sion to their seats, on inspection and examination of them by the 
republican party it was discovered, first, that they were all white 



22 

men, aud, secondly, that tliey were all democrats. The republican 
party challenged the aiTay, and Congress decided they were in- 
competent and unfit, and sent them back. And instantly another 
discovery was made, which was, that " no legal governments existed 
in any of the States lately in rel)ellion." These States had not been 
" in rebellion " for two years. They had been under the watchful 
eye of the republican party every hour in the day and night for these 
two years. That party had sat by and heard the President call on 
them to rise and take their places in the Union, had seen them rise, 
hold conventions, elect Legislatures, elect Senators and Kepresenta- 
tives, and nothing was said. But when those Senators and Repre- 
sentatives came forward with their credentials, marvelous to relate, 
these States were suddenly discovered not to be States. 

Then there was enacted a drama which, but for the calamities with 
which it was fraught, would rank as the greatest farce known in his- 
tory. Then came that grand abortion called reconstruction. In its 
train have followed more pangs and woes than war with all its hor- 
rors has. It was a crime, because it was a willful trampling of the 
Constitution in the dust. It was a dishonor, because it was an insult 
to a fettered people. It was a disgrace to American statesmanship. 
It was a blow at the life of the Eepublic. It disfranchised the intel- 
ligent, the virtuous, the honorable citizens of the South, and gave 
power over them to the ignorant, the licentious, and the base. It 
gave those who had neither property nor education the power to tax 
without limit the owners of the remnant of jiroperty lef t to them by 
the war. It bound the hands of the whites and turned them over un- 
protected to the unbounded rapacity aud savage brutality of the 
blacks. 

And why was all this done ? "Was it because the people of the 
South were disposed to take up arms again ? No one has ever been 
bold enough to suggest such a contingency in justification of recon- 
struction. Did the North, victorious and unimpaired in all the 
strength and appliances of war, fear a people conquered, disarmed, 
scattered, without leaders, or organization, or money ? No one is sim- 
pleton or coward enough to make this a pretext for reconstruction. 
Was it because we were turbulent and unruly ? No, sir ; history does 
not show it. The legislation of Congress does not assert or even 
assume it. The preamble to the act for reconstruction does not 
declare it. It states expressly the ground on which Congress pre- 
tended to base its action in destroying the autonomy of ten States, 
and that ground was, that no legal governments then existed in those 
States. Let this be remembered now and forever. It was solely on 
the assumption that no legal governments existed in these States. 
There wasno social disturbance in the Soutli. There were individual 
instances of violence, such as must occur in the nature of things at the 
subsidence of every great civil commotion. They occurred in the 
North, and are occurring there now as well as in the South. They are 
occurring now in several of the Northern States — Iowa, Indiana, 
Pennsylvania, and notably in Illinois. 

What then was the motive of the republican party in subverting 
the governments of the ten Southern States? It was only to perpet- 
uate its own existence aud keep control of the Government. All 
these crimes were committed to keep power in its hands. 

Now, sir, I have asserted that all the evils which the South has en- 
dured were the offspring of reconstruction^ and I assert in the light 
of history that tlie violence, the bloodshed, the conflict of races which 
have taken place are the legitimate, the natural results of the same 



23 

fruitful cause of our immeasurable calamities. Ihavesliowu that we 
were at peace before that iniquitous step was taken ; I have showu 
that we were not able or disposed to take up arms; I hare shown 
that Congress did not pretend that reconstruction was necessary to 
suppress domestic violence ; and I have showu that Congress expressly 
asserted by solemn enactment the ground and the only ground on 
which it would stand for justification in entering on the perilous ex- 
periment of destroying, not one State, but near one-third of tlie States 
in the Union. Now let us see whether the violence in the South is 
not traceable directly to the republican party. 

I have already said that the laws which control the conduct of men 
are as fixed as the law of gravitation, and tbat under like circum- 
stances mankind will manifest the same qualities of heart ; and this 
law, which is general to the human family, is especially true of a sin- 
gle race, of a single family of that race, and of a single people born 
and educated under the same Government and institutions. What is 
true of the people of one section of the United States is true of any 
other. AVe are all born freemen. Our earliest lessons teach us to ab- 
hor kings and tyrants, to resent wrong, to resist oppression, to protect 
at the risk of life, our honor and our homes. There is nothing in 
the iiast to justify any American statesman in supposing that the peo- 
ple of the South are in this respect inferior to any people known in 
history. Their record in the Kevolution, their heroism in the war of 
1812, in the war with Mexico, and in the late civil war, attest their 
lineage as sons of freedom. Nothing, sir, has occurred in the Soutli 
that woidd not have been done by the people of any State in the 
Union had they been the victims of like wrongs and oppression. 

Crime in Massachusetts is less than the crime committed in newly 
settled States in the West, because her social organization is older 
and the relations and rights of men and their remedies for redress are 
better established. She has had no social revolution within two 
hundred years. There are no disturbing forces pressing upon her from 
without. But, subject her people to-day to the ordeal through which 
the people of the South have had to pass, and the same social forces 
will instantly appear which have disturbed the South for the last 
eight years. Double her population, and let one-half be a people of 
an inferior order, a people ignorant and poor, superstitious and vile, 
and having from previous servitude no individuality and but little 
conscience. Then clothe them with equal political rights in a day 
and turn loose among them a baud of hungry, greedy, unscrupulou.s 
adventurers from another clime, who have no ir.terest in the State 
but to get office to rob, and to do which they engender distrust 
and revenge in the breasts of these savages by working on their 
superstition and persuading them, the people of Massachusetts in- 
tend and are trying to enslave them again, and her condition 
Avould be but a feeble picture of the South. But what would be the 
result ? I ask the Senators from that glorious old Commonwealth 
which struck the first blow for constitutional liberty on this conti- 
nent, would his sons tamely submit to such a wrong '? Would they sit 
passive and hold their hands while looking at these incendiaries put- 
ting the torch to their factories and their dwellings ? Would they 
stay their hands when these robbers had burdened them with a tax 
which would take their houses from over their heads to pay the 
debt ? Would they stand idle and see their credit ruined, their fields 
becoming fallow, their judiciary debauched, their governor rolibing 
the treasury, their LegLslature an organized mass of ignorance 
wielded by hostile knaves, and their homes pallor-stricken by the 



24 

constant dread of arson, rape, and murder ? No, no I Fanenil Hall 
would again quiver with the eloquence of her patriot orators, and 
Banker Hill would tremble under the indignant tread of her mar- 
shaled heroes. They would rise in their strength and drive these de- 
mons headlong into the sea. 

But, sir, reconstruction was accomplLshed. Near a million negroes, 
finding themselves voters, became more turbulent than before. Crimes 
multiplied with amazing rapidity. Murder, red-handed murder, 
tlireateued the white race by day, and arson became an institution of 
the night. Blazing gin-houses, on the least fancied wrong, illuminated 
the dismal night like merry bonfires, and the profits of a year dis- 
solved to ashes in an hour. Thefts were as common as opportunities^ 
and opportunities were forced when not to be found. In the rura, 
districts, female honor was so often violated, that men and women 
dreaded the coming of night, and many abandoned their homes and 
took refuge in the cities. Let me state a fact in the history of Georgia 
as a proof of what I say of the prevalence of crime. The judges ap- 
pointed by Governor Bullock in 1868 were all republicans, with but 
one exception. They could hardly be charged with iiijustice to the 
blacks. Under these judges the number of convictions for almost 
every grade of crime can be imagined, in absence of accurate crim- 
inal statistics, from the statement, that during Bullock's term of 
four years, he pardoned over four hundred negroes who had been con- 
victed of crimes of all kinds, including murder, manslaughter, rape, 
arson, burglary, robbery, and all others down to petit larceny. From 
the number thus pardoned you may form a general estimate of how 
many must have been convicted, and the number of convictions must, 
in the nature of things, be far short of the number of olienses com- 
mitted. 

But such was the state of immorality and crime which followed 
naturally the sudden enfranchisement of a people who knew not how 
to exercise any of theprivilegesgrowingoutof their new and intoxicat- 
ing condition. Then, sir, what must follow, in natural order, such a 
state of things as this? You do not need to be told. Ask yourselves 
what you would have done under such a trial? You would have 
done what every community on earth, Christian or pagan, would. 
You would have protected your homes, your property, your families, 
and the honor and virture of your wives, sisters, and daughters by 
every means that God and nature had given you. The eai-ly settlers 
of California when infested by thieves and lawless men, finding no 
protection in the law, became a law unto themselves, and by an 
organized force, called a committee of vigilance, restored order to the 
community. Many citizens of the k^outh in communities where the 
negroes were in the majority combined for self-defense. This was 
the original motive — nothing more. But, as in all organizations which 
operate outside the forms of law, so in this, violent men, who often 
have private grievances to revenge, crept in, and the purpose of 
the organization, which was simply for protection, was perverted and 
unlawful aggressions followed. And at this point of deflection, what 
was intended only for self-preservation, changed into what is com- 
monly known as the Ku-Klux organization. 

But who was to blame for this ? Can any fair-minded man say that 
the original intention to unite for mutual protection against such 
Ijiwlessness, was not justifiable ? Who is responsible for a conflagra- 
tion : the man who sets the torch to the building, or the flame which 
he kindles ? The republican party must have known the nature, the 
ignorance, the passions, the unbridled lusts, and the low moral sense 



25 

of the negro in the South. They knew the history of Hayti and 
Jamaica. They knew the violent social disturbance which would in- 
evitably follow the freedom, enfranchisment, the political equality, 
of the negro race, inflamed as they were, by incendiary office-seekers, 
against the native whites. And the results are only such as any 
statesman would have foreseen, and such as anyone, who did not 
value party dominance more than the good of his own race and of 
his common country, would have exerted every effort to prevent. 

But I am glad to see, that while the President charges the exist- 
ence of disorder, he, inadvertently, no doubt, places the res])onsibility 
where I have already shown it rests, and that is on the republican party. 
He tells us that " lawlessness, turbulence, and bloodshed have charac- 
terized the political affairs of Louisiana since its reorganization un- 
der the reconstruction acts." And here is the key that unlocks the 
secret of all the trouble in the South. He strips the mask from his 
own party with one brush of his hand. Reconstruction is the evil 
genius of American civilization. It arrested the progress of the whole 
Union, as the breath of the monster which ajipeared in the path- 
way of Regulus checked the onward march of his army. It was 
that lawlessness on the part of Congress which begat lawlessness 
in the people. It was that disregard for the rights of white citi- 
zens, in order to make republican voters of the blacks, which con- 
vinced the people of the South that the Government had cast them 
off, or was holding them for adventurers to plunder through the power 
of an ignorant, pliable negro constituency. It was that futile but 
wicked effort of the republican party to legislate a stupid, unlettered 
semi-savage into an American statesman. It was that folly of hitch- 
ing the white man between tlio shafts and mounting the mule in the 
cart to hold the lines and drive. Reconstruction will be written down 
by the philosophical historian not only as the greatest folly of all 
time, but as the worst crime against civilization, human progress, and 
self-government, that was ever perpetrated through the cunning or 
wickedness of man. It has no justification. The people of the South 
were not permitted to show what they would do to reinstate them- 
selves in the Union. You did not give them the opjiortunity. You 
would not give them a trial. There was no locus pvnitcntiw allowed 
them. 

You legislated, in the language of Thaddeus Stevens, •'outside of 
the Constitution," to crush the pride, the manhood, and destroy the 
material interest of the South for the sole purpose of getting control 
of the political power of those ten States. And the whole country 
has been paralyzed by that monstrosity in statesmanship. We were 
seized by the throat just as wo were attempting to rise from the ashes 
of the civil conflagration, knocked down, and bound and placed under 
guard of our former slaves. Evil upon evil has followed the march 
of the republican party in the South since reconstruction. The North 
has suffered in all its industries and the South has been almost de- 
stroyed as a market for the North. Their factories have been lying- 
idle for want of purchasers. Their poor have been thrown out of 
employment and sent shivering, wandering, naked, hungry, and beg- 
ging into the streets. The publicTreasury.has been exhausted inmain- 
taining a few vagabonds in power over the Southern States. Insur- 
rections have followed. State governments have been overthrown and 
set up by the bayonet at the call of worthless, homeless adventurers, 
becatise for the loaves and fishes they claimed to be republicans, and 
the whole country has been convulsed and alarmed through fear of 
civil war. Every State over which these heartless, unprincipled scape- 



2ii 

graces have obtained control has been the theater of riots, bloodshed 
ceaseless commotion, and in several, of dual governors and dnal Legis- 
latures engaged in open war. As long as we lie supinely and let these 
vampires suck our life-blood, there is peace ; but when we rise and 
shake them loose, we are disloyal. If we order them from our grounds 
when crawling around a negro cabin, the President is telegraphed that 
we have insulted the flag, and they rush to Washington and cry pit- 
eously for protection and to be allowed to return to their leeching. 
Sir, it was a cruel punishment which Samson inflicted when he caught 
the three hundred foxes, tied them in pairs with a firebrand to their 
tails and turned them loose to burn the corn and vineyards of _ his 
enemies. But it was a more wicked and destructive puni.shmeut 
which the republican party inflicted on their own race, their own 
fellow-citizens, weak, defenseless, stricken in poverty and sorrow, 
when they turned loose a thousand remorseless adventurers, as fire- 
brands between the races. Samsou slew his thousand enemies with 
the jaw-bone of one ass, but the southern people, white and black, 
have been smitten and slain with the jaw-bones of a thousand asses. 
The Administration accepts their frantic stories as gospel truth and 
rejects the sworn statements of the truest and bravest men in the 
South, laymen and clergy. Northern men and Union soldiers, who 
have gone South since the war to engage in legitimate business, also 
add their testimony to our own ; but they are not politicians — do not 
bow the knee to Baal ; do not devote themselves to strife and jjIuu- 
der — and their voice is not heard. Officers of the Army when sent 
to investigate and report are not heeded. And special committees 
of Congress (republicans,) when they deny the statements of these 
carpet-baggers, are insulted by their own party and called renegades 
and liars. And when we put these creatures of reconstruction out of 
office and establish stable and peaceable governments, the cry is raised 
that it is the peace of intimidation. Bat, sir, this train of thought 
is to > melancholy for me to pursue it further. If I could believe that 
the good people of the North who love honesty, truth, liberty, and 
good government are willing to indorse the action of the Administra- 
tion toward the South, I should lose all faith iu the stability of the 
Republic. 

I come now to consider the action of the Executive iu the part he 
has taken in the aftairs of Louisiana. And here I must j)remise, that 
he who expects to hear denunciation fall from my lips, will be disap- 
pointed. I shall use no language which is not respectful to the Chief 
Magistrate of this Government. However much I might condemn 
his action in this or any other matter, I should extend to him that 
courtesy which, as a member of a co-ordinate and coequal depart- 
ment oi' the same Government, I would exact of him. Denunciation 
proves nothing. One fact is stronger than the strongest vocabulary 
of vituperation. Logic may be enforced by rhetoric, but rhetoric 
without facts or argument is idle breath. Genius may create the one, 
but truth must supply the other. The truest eloquence is often but 
the simplest narration. The strongest reasoning is often but a 
statement of facts. The grandest, the most terrible denunciation is 
the condemnation pronounced by truth. 

But, before proceeding to the facts, I beg just here to enter my 
protest as a Senator, and as an American citizen, against the implica- 
tion which runs through the discussion of this question, that any 
condemnation of the acts of the Executive, if made at all, must be 
uttered with bated breath. No American citizen, however humble, 
need walk in the shadow of even the Federal Executive. He is but 



27 

a citizen clothed for a brief hour iu the life of the Uuiou with a power 
not his own, but delegated by the people, to be exercised for the com- 
mon good. He is but a steward, and to be called to a strict account 
for the unfaithful discharge of his duty. The law is alike his mastei 
and our own. It is as much mightier than he is, as fortj' million 
people are mightier than one man. It is as much superior to his 
■will, as is that of six million voters, w'hose will is embodied in and 
constitutes the law. It is grander than all mortals. It is as sacred as 
jiersonal honor. It is as dear as life. In it are all the issues of free- 
d6m ; without it there is no safety, and just beyond and contiguous to 
it is the boundary of the region of anarchy and death. The Ameri- 
can people cannot ati'ord, however strong may be their sense of grati- 
tude and obligation to any man for any service, to jiermit him to lay 
unholy hands on the ark of the covenant. 

The President, in his message to the Senate, was not content with 
stating the facts responsive to the inquiries embraced in the Senate 
resolution. He entered into an elaborate discussion of the whole 
Louisiana troubles. He goes back to 1868 and sweeps together all 
the disturbances which have occurred, both political and personal, 
quarrels and atirays. More than this, he discusses the questions of 
of law which arise out of these unhappy events. Still further he 
undertakes a defense of Durell, which he was unwilling to make for 
himself, and to avoid which he resigned his office. And all this I 
am sorry to say the President of the United States, of the whole peo- 
ple, does in what seems to be the spii-it of a partisan. 

The President prejudged the case and then set to work to make an 
argument to support his judgment. He tells us (page 6) that " each 
branch of a legislative assembly is the judge of the election and qualifi- 
cation of its own members " and in the next breath ho decides the 
qtiestion of the election and qualifications of the members of the Legis- 
lature of Louisiana, by telling us in unqualified terms, that " No- 
body w^as disturbed by the military who had a legal right at that 
time to occupy a seat in the Legislature." 

The President first decides the question for the people of Louisiana 
that the House of its Legislature was an unlawful organization ; that 
it Avas but " a democratic minority organized by fraud and violence 
by trampling law under foot;" and then he decides for that branch 
of that Legislative Assembly, that the members who were seated had 
no legal right to occupy seats in that body. Again he says, (page 5,) 
" I am well aware that any interference by the officers or troops of 
the United States with the organization of the State Legislature, or 
any of its proceedings, or with any civil department of the Govern- 
ment, is repugnant to our ideas of government." 

He goes on to say — 

I can conceive of no case not iuvolvinu robellion or insurrection 'where such inter- 
ference by authority of the General Government ou^ht to be permitted or can bo 
justified. 

" No case not involving rebellion or insurrection," says the President. 
Was there rebellion in Louisiana in .Tanuary last 1 Was there insur- 
rection or rebellion in the Legislature of that State on the 4th of that 
month? Who has ever asserted there was ? Has any champion of the 
Administration ventured on the assertion ? What is a rebellion, or in- 
surrection ? It is, briefly, an armed uprising against and resistance to 
the constituted and lawful authority of a State. And what consti- 
tuted and lawful authority of a State was the disturbance which 
occurred in the organization of the House against? Was itrel>ellion 
against the executive or the jiuliciary of that State ? Was it against 



28 

the constitiited Legislature of that State ? No, sir : there was no Leg- 
islature, and it was a disturbance not extending to blows eTen, which 
arose in the organization of one branch of that Les^slature. That 
body, then assembled under the a^gis of the constitution, was sacred 
against all interference except by its own order and will. Had the 
members fallen upon each other by the throats and taken life, the 
only interference which could have been justified, would have been to 
preserve the peace of the State and to make the offenders answer for 
whatever crime they may have committed. The governor had no right 
to interfere until the violence might have swelled to proportions be- 
yond the power of the house to control it, and he could in that event 
have done nothing more than keep the peace. He had no power to 
establish or remove a doorkeeper even — much less a member of that 
body. In Ohio, in 1844, two bodies, claiming each to be the lawful 
house, sat for two weeks in the same room. They had the power and 
the right to sit or not to sit, to organize or not organize, and the 
Governor of that State had no more right to disturb them than he had 
to disperse Congress. So in Louisiana, neither the President, nor the 
Governor, nor Federal soldiers, had the right to cross the threshold of 
that house without permission first asked for and granted. 

Republicans need not be troubled with the doctrine of state sove- 
reignty, which vexes their souls like the ghost of a mjirdered foe, to 
find this law. It exists as a necessary element of our system of gov- 
ernment, even if the States be not sovereign ; and when it ceases to 
be law — constitutional, fundamental law — when a State legislature 
no longer has absolute control over its own action and plan of assem- 
bly, the Republic will be lost in despotism. But I return to the mes- 
sage. 

The President says that nothing except rebellion or insurrection 
can justify interference by the General Government with the organi- 
zation of a State legislature. He says, in other words, that the inter- 
ference by the military of the General Government in the organiza- 
tion of the Louisiana legislature, or with its proceedings, cannot be 
justified unless that legislature was in rebellion or insurrection. 

But, assuming that the President is right, and admitting for argu- 
ment's sake that insurrection or rebellion can be committed by raem- 
bei"s-elect in the mere act of orgauizing themselves into a legislature, 
(which with all respect I conceive involves a legal absurdity,) how 
does he apply the law thus laid down when he comes to the facts of 
the case 'I No case not involving rebellion or insurrection can justify 
Federal interference, he tells us. As Federal interference did take 
place — as he is defendiug that interference — as he has taken no steps 
to undo what he has done by Federal bayonets — we naturally expect 
him at the next step to tell us, or attempt to show us on the facts, 
that rebellion or insurrection existed when his troops interfered and 
organized a State legislature. Hear him in the next sentence. Does 
he say there was rebellion, or insurrection, or bloodshed, or a riot? 
No ; the expected plea of justification for his military is not put in, 
and in its stead, (I say it with all resiJect for the President,) we hear 
a plea which, if entered to a charge on the criminal side of a court, 
could be called nothing but the plea of insanity or infortunium ; for 
he says — 

But there are circmtistances connoatetl -writli the late legislative embroglie in 
Louisiana which seem to exempt the military from any intentional wrong'in the 
matter. 

I will say here, before proceeding to show, by his own confes- 
sions, the great wrong which the President has done, that I shall 



29 

not dwell ou the details of the acts of either douioLTatn or repuh- 
licans iu the organization of the Hon?e ou the 4th of January. It 
has been shown by several Senators ou this side that the organization 
took place according to law, even though it was done in a boisteroujs 
manner. I shall not occupy this ground, which has already been so 
fully and ably reviewed ; first, because I could only repeat what has 
been so well said ; and secondly, but mainly, because I do not con- 
sider it material. I regard it as a side issue. Whether the organiza- 
tion was regular or irregular, was lawful or unlawful, does not affect 
the main question. The request of Wiltz to the Federal military to 
preserve order was a great mistake. It was inviting a Federal otlicer 
to do what he had no right to do. His presence in that house was 
a humiliation to the Stat^, it matters not by whose request or 
whose order he wont there. It was the duty of that house to 
preserve order by the authority vested in it and necessarily be- 
longing to it, and to do so by the forces of the State. So, on the 
other hand, if the republicans were the lawful house, they should 
have used the same power. I justify neither democrats nor repub- 
licans in the use of Federal troops. If they were not allowed to as- 
semble in the State-house, they should have organized elsewhere. 
It would have been their right, as well as their duty, to employ the 
power which is vested in every Legislature for its protection. A body 
calling itself the Legislature of Alabama two years ago met, not iu 
the State-house but in a court-house, and their organization and pro- 
ceedings were held by this Senate to be valid. The meu, and not 
the place, make a Legislature legal. 

But the manner of the organization, the legality or illegality of it, 
are all aside from the solemn question presented to the American 
people by the conduct of the troops iu Louisiana. In discussing it 
I shall not assume any doubtful ground. I waive the question of 
the legality of the action of the President in suppressing the violence 
on the 14th of September. I will grant, for my purpose, that his 
action then was right, and I take the question of fact from that time 
on the President's own statement. I shall raise no question of fact 
which any frieud of the President on this floor or elsewhere will deny, 
for I shall use no facts except those relied on by the President himself 
in his own justification. These are enouf^h, more than enough, to 
convince the candid mind which is seeking for truth and is not 
blinded by party zeal that neither the President nor his defenders 
on this floor have met the true issue face to face and overcome it. 
The solemu questions which the freemen of America are waiting to 
have answei'ed are — 

First. By what authority of law did the President of the I'nitod 
States, who by the Constitution is sole Commander-in-Chief of the 
Army and Navy, delegate and resign this exclusive constitutional 
power to the governor of Louisianaf 

Second. By what authority of law did the President of the United 
States, sole Comnuxnder-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, turn over his 
troops and ships of war to tlie governor of Louisiana, to be used against 
the citizens of that State when and how he pleased, and for an indefi- 
nite period of time, and to enforce any law of the State which he, the 
governor, might wish to enforce ? 

The,s6 are the questions which remain unanswered. They go to the 
heart of the iss\io now pending between the republican party and the 
})eople of this Republic. Are the facts assumed in these grave inqui- 
ries true * Let us look to the message of the President to test their 
truth. The argument is brief, for it consi.sts iu a recital of the Pres- 



30 

dent's own statement and admissions and the reading of but one 
clause in the Constitution. 

He tells us that "early in last summer (1874) the troops were all 
withdrawn from the State (Louisiana) with the exception of a small 
garrison at New Orleans barracks/' &c. Quiet prevailed there until 
the 14th of September. Then domestic violence occurred, and he sent 
troops again into Louisiana. He issued his proclamation for the in- 
surgents to disperse. They did disperse, as we all know, without 
raising an arm against the Federal Government. They surrendered 
every position which they had taken, resigned every office they had 
assumed, and Kellogg and his party were at once reinstated. And 
now comes the statement — the admission which excludes all hope of 
escape from condemnation. 

The President says, (page 5:) 

Troops had been sent to the State under this reqnisition of the governor, (that is, 
of September 14,) and as other disturbances seemed imminent, they were allowed 
to remain there to render the executive such aid as might become necessary to en- 
force the laws of the State and repress the continued violence which seemed inev- 
itable the moment the Federal support should be withdrawn. 

Here is his confession that the troops were left in Louisiana after 
the domestic violence was over; that they were left there because 
other disturbances seemed imminent, and that he left them there " to 
render the executive (Kellogg) such aid as might become necessary 
to enforce the laws of the Stute." With these facts before us, let me 
place by them the only clause in the Constitution which can justify 
Federal interference, under any circumstances, with the peoi)le or 
government of a state. 

I quote the fourth section of the fourth article of the Constitution : 

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form 
of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion ; and on application 
of the Legislature or of the executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) 
against domestic violence. 

Every State shall be protected against invasion and domestic vio- 
lence. That means, sir, against domestic violence in being, not 
against "disturbances which seem imminent." It does not mean 
against violence vrhich by the President's own admission was past, 
which had subsided without the necessity of striking a blow or firing 
a gun ; a violence which was hushed into obedience by his voice. 
But the President allowed his troops— no, sir, not his troops, but the 
Army of the United States, composed of freemen and citizens of the 
United States, organized, fed and clothed by the whole people of 
the United States and in part by the citizens of Louisiana, whom 
they were left to crush — he allowed the United States troops to re- 
main in Louisiana, not to suppress domestic violence there in action, 
but " to enforce the laws of the State." What are the laws of Louisi- 
ana? They are her statutes and Code Napoleon, and the Presi- 
dent turned over the troops of the United States to Kellogg, to be 
used by him at his will, to enforce any and all laws of that State, 
With them he could collect taxes if any resistance was made to the 
demands of his cormorant tax-gatherers, and with thern he could 
oppress the people on the appearance of any opposition to his 
usurped power, and he, Kellogg, was to be the sole judge of the 
occasion when he should order United States troops to march against 
and shoot down American freemen. Do I state the case too strongly ? 
Let the President himself answer for me and vindicate the charge. 
In attempting to excuse the Federal troops for their unlawful con- 



31 

dnct in takiug five men by the collar, who had been seated in the 
House and leading them out, ho says, (page 6:) 

Knowing that they (the troops) had been placed in Louisiana to prevent domestic 
^-iolence and aid in the enforcement of the State laws, the olhceis and troops of the 
United States may well have supposed that it was their duty to act when ciilled 
ou by the governor for that purpose. 

Again he says, (page 8 :) 

Under these circumstances the same military force has been continued in Louisi- 
ana as was sent there under the hist call, and under the same general instructions. 

But again and in still stronger terms the President admits the fact. 
On page 6, last paragraph, he says : 

"Whether it was wrong for the governor, at the request of the majority of the 
members returned as elected t^> the house, to use such means as were in his power 
to defeat these lawless and revolutionary proceedings is perhaps a debatable ques- 
tion, (fcC. 

What further proof do we need than this, that the President dele- 
gated his authority as Commander-in-Chief of the Army to Kellogg 
us to the forces then and now in Louisiana t He sent the officers v n 
command of those troops to Louisiana with " general instruction 8." 
What were those general instructions ? He tells us that they were 
to aid in the enforcement of State laws. To aid whom ? To aid Kel- 
logg. Who was to judge when such aid should be rendered ; the 
President or Kellogg, the officers or the troops ? Kellogg and no one 
else, which is shoAvu by the fact that on the 4th of January last, when 
the disorder occurred in the organization of the house of representa- 
tives in Louisiana, Kellogg did not make an application to the Presi- 
dent for x>rotection, stating that there was domestic violence, as the 
Constitution requires him to do. He did not say, " Domestic vio- 
lence prevents the assembling of the Legislature, and therefore I, as 
governor, make the application," but he issued his order as governor 
to Colonel De Trobriand. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. May I ask the Senator a question there 7 

Mr. NOKWOOD. Certainly. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. I would ask the Senator whether Mr. Speaker 
Wiltz, as he called himself, did any other or different thing? Did 
he apply to the President, or did he apply to the commander of the 
troops ? 

Mr. NOEWOOD. The Senator, I ams rry to learn, has not heard 
nie up to this time, or he would have heard me say awhile ago that 
I thought the application of Mr. Wiltz fl^as unjustifiable. I do not 
justify Mr. Wiltz nor any one else in applying for Federal troops to 
interfere in the organization of that house. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. Then, if I do not disturb the Senate, may I ask 
him, that being the case, how he says th t the President is respon- 
sible ? 

Mr. NOEWOOD. I am endeavoring to show that ; and if the Sen- 
ator will listen to me I think I will show him ; at least I will give 
him food for reflection. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. Did the Senator hear mv question ? 

Mr. NOEWOOD. I am listening. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. My question is how he holds the President re- 
sponsible when, upon the only evidence we have that I have ever 
heard of, the President was as ignorant of what was to take place or 
what took place on that occasion, until it all had occurred, as the 
Senator himself or myself? 

Mr. NOEWOOD. I cauuot repeat all I have said. The Senator 



32 

has not hoard the premises -with which I set out, and consequeutly 
he probably may not so well understand the deduction that I am 
drawing. I say the President is responsible, and I say it because he 
put it in the power of Kellogg to do what Kellogg did. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. May I ask the Senator another qu&stiou ? 

Mr. NORWOOD. Certainly. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. Do I understand the Senator to maintain that 
the President was wrong in overthrowing the Penn operations of the 
14th of September, if I am right in the date ? 

Mr. NORWOOD. If the Senator will ask me a question that is 
pertinent to the point I am discussing, I will answer him ; but I do 
not think his inquiry has anything to do with this question. If the 
Senator wants to know whether I think the President was wrong in 
delegating power to Kellogg to overthrow the State government or 
to enforce the laws of the State of Louisiana, I tell him yes. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. Yes; but that does not answer the question. The 
President overthrew Penn on the 14th or 15th of September, what- 
ever the date was, upon the application of the only person who was 
then exercising executive authority in the State of Louisiana. Now, 
in order to understand the application of the Senator's remarks, I 
wish to ask him whether he maintains that in doing that thing, under 
the circumstances then existing, if the President did do it, the Presi- 
dent was right or wrong ? 

Mr. NORWOOD. In order to avoid all difficulty on questions of 
law that have no application to this case, and all issues of fact about 
which there might be dispute, I stated in the beginning that I should 
introduce no facts except those that are stated by the President in 
his message, and that all questions of law arising out of the disturb- 
ance of the Penn insurrection, or the suppression of it by the Pres- 
ident, I should waive, and I take the facts and the law from that 
date. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. Why will not the Senator say ? 

Mr. NORWOOD. Granting for the sake of argument that it was 
right, that answers the Senator. I proceed from that point to show 
that what followed was wrong in law. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. May I ask the Senator why he will not grant it 
as a fact if he thinks so, instead of for argument's sake? 

Mr. NORWOOD. Because it is not necessary to my argument at 
all. I say, admitting that it was right at that time, what occurred 
in January, nearly five months after, was all wrong, and I am endeav- 
oring to show that the President is responsible for what occurred, 
because he put the troops under the command of Kellogg, turned hid 
back upon the scene, and left Kellogg to use them as he might please. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. If I do not unpleasantly interrupt the Sena- 
tor 

Mr. NORW^OOD. Not at all. 

Mr. EDMUNDS. I would like to ask him whether he thinks that 
under the Constitution, when the President has been called upou as 
on the 14th or 15th of September, by executive authority to aid in 
suppressing domestic violence, the next day, the violence not being 
repressed, nobody being put under arrest, and everybody merely 
having gone back to his place of rendezvous, it is necessary then, in 
order to overturn a revival of the same insurrection or domestic 
violence, that the governor of the State and the commander of 
the troops must wait until the President of the United States, two 
thousand miles off, can be comnmnicated with. 

Mr. NORWOOD. I do not think that another application Is to be 
made every day, or every two or three days, or every week. 



33 

Mr. EDMUNDS. I was sure the caudor of my friend would admlfc 
tliat. 

Mr. NORWOOD. Certainly I do not think that ; and if I had 
had the honor of his attention up to this point, he would have seen 
the drift of my argument, and that his question was unnecessary. 
I will briefij^ state my position. 

A disturbance occurred on the 14th of Septeml>er. On the day fol- 
lowing the President sent troops into Louisiana to suppress that do- 
mestic violence. Now I take the position that in point of fact there 
was no other domestic violence there from that day until the present. 
Mr. EDMUNDS. That requires proof. 

Mr. NORWOOD. And I attempt to prove it by the message of 
the President. This is why I said, I assumed no fact that was in dis- 
pute. No domestic violence has occurred there from that day to this. 
The imbroglio, as the President calls it, on the 4th of January did 
not even amount to a blow by the fist ; no assault and battery oc- 
curred, not a single drop of blood was shed ; and I am going on to 
show that under this state of facts the President of the United States 
placed ships of war, and infantry and cavalry and artillery, under 
the command of Kellogg, and left them there from the 15th of Sep- 
tember until the 4th of January under the control of Kellogg ; the 
President himself being by the Constitution the only person who 
can control and issue orders to these troops. When the disturbance 
occurred on the 4th of January no application was made to the Presi- 
dent. When Kellogg made his request, which amounted to a com- 
mand, on De Trobriand, he did not report the fact to the President, 
and the matter was thoroughly understood between the Dej^artment 
here and Kellogg and the troops in Louisiana, that whatever orders 
were issued by Kellogg should be implicitly obeyed and carried out. 
That is my line of argument. 

[At this point the honorable Senator yielded to a motion that the 
Senate take a recess till half past seven o'clock p. m.] 
At the evening session — 

Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. President, when the Senate took a recess I 
was endeavoring to show that President Grant is responsible for what 
occurred in Louisiana the 4th of January ; and, in order to show that, 
I was giving the facts presented in his own message in which he 
tells us of the purpose for which those troops were sent to Louisiana 
and for which they were left there from the 15th of September until 
the 4th of January. 

The President did not judge of the necessity for troops on that 
occasion as the law requires him to do, and why should he, after 
having delegated to Kellogg that constitutional power vested in him 
alone ? No orders were issued by the Commander-in-Chief of those 
trooj)s to suppress domestic violence. No, sir, none of these require- 
ments of the Constitution and laws of the land were complied with. 
But the President's lieutenant — one he had appointed without warrant 
or shadow of law — a governor, or rather one acting as governor, 
issued his orders to a colonel of the United States troops to move 
them agaiust the freemen of a State and drive them from their places 
in the capitol. But the President does not leave any room for infer- 
ence as to the power he placed in Kellogg's hands. He admits that 
after he sent the troops to Louisiana, he left them to obey Kellogg's 
orders. Speaking of the affair of the 4th January, he says, (page 5, 
bottom,) " I did not know that any such thing was anticipated, and 
no orders nor suggestions were ever given to any military officer 
in that State, upon that subject, prior to the occurrence." This shows 
3 N 



34 

that the officers were sent there under "general instructions;" that 
Kellogg did not make known to the President what was transpiring on 
the 4th, (for the President learned of the despotic step taken by the 
troops through the press on the 5th of January,) and that he waa 
not consulted by even his own subordinate officers before they 
obeyed the orders of Kellogg. Who can doubt, therefore, that the 
general instructions given by the President to his officers extended 
to obedience of any orders Kellogg might issue on his own motion 
and of his own wicked counsel to enforce any law against that dis- 
tracted peojile ? 

But this, deplorable and condemuable as it is, is not all. I have 
said that tlae President placed the military of the United States in the 
hands of Kellogg for an indefinite time and a disci'etionary service. 
He sent them to him on the loth September. He held them there 
under the rei)resentation of that usurper— trembling for his office and 
spoils — that further danger was ai>prehended. The election passed 
off' quietly and peaceably on the 3d of November, and still Kellogg 
commanded the troops. November and December passed off as Sep- 
tember and October had, without domestic violence, but the State 
still continued a military camp. January came and the bayonets still 
encircled the usurper. The President held them still subject to Kel- 
logg's behest. He knew of no necessity for their continuance, for he 
says that he did not know that the trouble of January 4 was even an- 
ticipated. So, without excuse, he held the State under military power 
even after he had reason to believe domestic violence was imminent. 
And the President thus abdicated his constitutional power over a 
portion of the Army; delegated the command to Kellogg; issued none 
but "general instructions" to the troop,^; instructed them to obey 
Kellogg in any step he might take to enforce any law cf Louisiana ; 
placed no limits to his instructions as to how far the troups should go 
in obeying Kellogg; kept them under Kellogg's will for over three 
and a half months when the citizens were quiet and peaceable, and 
has held that State under bayonet rule, and crouching before the 
guns of armed ships, for more thau a month since the last disturb- 
ance in the State — a disturbance, sir, in which not even a blow with 
the fist was struck. If this is lawful, what act of the Federal Gov- 
ernment in crushing a State would not be lawful ? If a State can be 
kept under military power for near five months because a cowardly 
governor apprehends trouble, what limit is fixed beyond which such 
despotism cannot be enforced ? The same power which holds Louisi- 
ana in its iron grasp can hold every Southern State and every 
Northern State. The pretext for this oppression can be alleged 
against any other State when it should be made to appear that snch 
State must be bound in fetters to prevent a rebound which would 
depose by election the republican party or a usi^-per. And should 
the American people submit tamely, supinely, and without protest to 
this incalculable wrong, the Republic is at an end, and let us hail 
the empire at once and stop the struggle. 

But, sir, I have a few words more to say on this message. It is a 
sweeping indictment against the people of the South but especially 
against the people of Louisiana. I wish to call your attention to the 
evidence in which the President places im'plicit trust and has pre- 
sented in support of his charge, and on which he acted and gave 
Kellogg an army to crush a State. I will not consider the statements 
of General Sheridan, because they are not stated on his own knowl- 
edge. They are only hearsay. He arrived in New Orleans in Janu- 
ary last and his reports are based on what he has gathered from 



35 

others. He does not even say who his informers are, or hovr his infor- 
mation is derived. And, first, the witnesses whose stateuicuts tlie 
President relies on are all republicans, and therefore all partisan. 
Secondly, no witness swears to his statement, though that perhaps 
would not add to its value, as their word is worth as much as thjeir 
bond. These two facts are enough to make any judicious, impartial 
judge or juror skeptical at the opening of the case. But they ar(», 
with one or two exceptions, all carpet-baggers, who having no busi- 
ness at home go abroad to intermeddle with the business of others. 
Fourthly, they are all office-holders. These facts ought to be enough 
to '"make the judicious grieve," and even a republican doubt. Lis- 
ten to the names of this cloud of witnesses : William Pitt Kellogg. 
The William Pitt soumls excellently well, but there is a terrible 
decadence as we step from Pitt to Kellogg — Kellogg the iunuaculate, 
who, as the Senator from Connecticut, [Mr. Fekky,] a re])ublican of 
unquestionable faith, a gentleman cautious in judgment, clear in per- 
ception, and prudent in expression, tells us, obtained his office as gov- 
ernor "with falsehood in his hand and perjury on his lips" — Kellogg 
the patriot, who has been sacrificing himself on the United States 
Senate and on the governor's office for the good of the republican party 
and his own pocket for six laborious years — Kellogg, the hero who, as 
commander-in-chief of the army and navy of Louisiana and of Long- 
street, on the 14tli of Septemlier last, while desperately willing to 
immolate Kellogg on the altar of lil>erty, nevertheless, reluctantly con- 
sented to retreat to the custom-house to preserve the sacred person of 
the governor, is the first and main witness. If he could not say, as he 
reached that sanctuary, with the Apostle Paul, " I have fought the 
good figlit," he could at least have said "I have finished my course" 
in the fastest time on record, and "kept the faith" by saving the 
governor for the republican party. [Laughter.] I know of but one 
other man in all histoi'y who could have drawn the same delicate but 
very plain distinction, when one sees it, between Kellogg the man, 
and Kellogg, the governor. But danger sharpens Kellogg's percexi- 
tion most miraculously. He could swear — if his office depended on 
the distinction — to the exact line in the rainbow where yellow ends 
and orange begins. And as the President puts him up as the first and 
leading witness, his discrimination, apart from his absolute impartial- 
ity, commends him to our confidence. 

The other person I refer to is Major Lewis Merrill, who is another 
witness introduced by the President. His order of intellect is, if pos- 
sible, even more prismatic when un<ler oath, than Kc]lf)gg's when he 
is under fire. Merrill, when at Shreveport in counnand of his regi- 
ment, made affidavit before a civil magistrate to have certain persons 
arrested for alleged crimes: and when condennied for taking i)art as 
Army officer against the citizens of Louisiana by becoming a prose- 
cutor on the criminal side of the court, he overwhelmed and silenced 
the Secretary of War and the President by "emphatically claiming" 
(to use Colonel Morrow's own language) " that his act was that of 
Lewis MeiTill a citizen, and not of Major Lewis Merrill, an officer of the 
Army." As " in the mouths of two or three witnesses a matter shall 
be established," I do not see why the Px-esidcnt did not rest his case on 
the testimony of these four witnesses : Kellogg, the man, Kellogg, the 
governor, and "Lewis Merrill, a citizen, and Maj(U' Lewis Merrill, an 
officer of the Army." And let me here protect myself from all sus- 
picion or charge of disloyalty in presuming to s])eak of an Army offi- 
cer, by affirmijig that wliat I say <)f Lewis Merrill, is of " Lewis Mer- 
rill, a citizen." I have the profoundest consideration for "Major 



36 

Lewis Merrill, an officer of the Army." How fortunate it is for rue 
that Lewis Merrill is two ditfereut men! But, however clear this fact 
is to either Lewis Merrill, or to Major Lewis Merrill, Colonel Morrow, 
an officer whose statements do not, chameleon-like, take color from his 
surroundings, whose honor as a soldier or a gentleman is not the min- 
ion of power, does not see so clearly the distinction between the officer 
of the Army and the politician-citizen making partisan affidavits, for 
he continues his report by saying: 

"Whether a military officer in an important comniancl can separate his private 
fi'oiu his olficial character, and, without subjecting himself to censvtre, take original 
action in his own person whereby ho becomes identitied with political partisans, 
and whereby also the whole Ariny is brought into disparagement in the minds of 
many well-disposed people of the country at large, and wliereby also the reputa- 
tion of the service for fair and impartial conduct in the delicate and responsible 
duties it is required to perform in conjunction with the civil authoi'ities in this and 
other Southern States is impaired, I leave, without any expression of opinion on my 
part, to the decision of higher authority. 

If that " higher authority" ever made a decision on thisperiilexiug 
duality, the message of the President and the letter of the Secretary 
of War to the Senate do not disclose the fact. Perhaps they tried to 
administer a projjer censure, but when they approached "Major Mer- 
rill, an officer of the Army" he disappeared, to their bewilderment, in 
" Lewis Merrill, a citizen," just as, to the entire satisfaction of Eobert 
Dale Owen, Katie King, the terre8trial,vanished into Katie King, the 
celestial. The capacitj^ and determination of "Major Lewis Merrill 
an officer of the Army," to organize states, (as we shall see directly,) 
and the keen analysis and clear perception of his own want of iden- 
tity, mark him as a man of " fate and metaiihysical aid." He is just 
the man to i)acify the South ; for when Lewis Merrill a citizen shall 
fail — if failure can be supposed of one with head so clear — to swear 
his antagonists into prison, he can then fall back and call on " Major 
Lewis Merrill, an officer of the Army" to iiacify them by the " moral 
influence" and the " moral suasion " of his troops ; for the major does 
not omit to tell us that he understands the purpose of making a mili- 
tary camp of Louisiana, is "to maintain civil law,tirst, by the moral 
influence of glittering bayonets, and next, by ijhysical force." 

The next witness is Mr. Packard. He needs no introduction to this 
"body. He is chairman of the State central republican executive com- 
mittee. Upon his misrepresentations, says the Senator from Connecti- 
cut, [Mr. Ferry,] troops were sent to Louisiana in 1872 for the purpose 
of enforcing the order of Durell, and upon that order and by the assist- 
ance of those troops, the government of Louisiana was overthrown. 
This is the man who daring the last election intimidated the peo- 
])le of Louisiana — and by that I mean the democrats — by scouring the 
State from one end to the other with a military posse for the purpose 
of serving blank warrants. This is a matter of record. 

W. H. Twitchell, another witness, is a State senator and a warm 
supporter of Kellogg. He was defeated in the election of 1872, but 
seated nevertheless under Durell's order and by Federal troops. 

J. R. Beckwith is the United States district attorney in Louisiana, 
and he "settled" in that State when he was appointed to that office 
after the war. 

W. G. Brown (colored) is from Jamaica. He was defeated in 1872, 
but was counted into the office of superintendent of education by the 
" Lynch board. " Before his elevation to this position he kept a 
gambling-house for negroes 

Charles Clinton also " settled" in, or rather on, Louisiana after the 



37 

war. He settled into the office of treasurer ; and he has confessed 
on the stand in conrt that he diverted funds intended for payment 
of interest on State bonds to fit out Kellogg's guu-boat, and his 
excuse was that he desired "to clean out the rebels." 

J. H. Sypher, C. B. Darrall, and F. Morey also "settled" in 
Louisiana after the war, and are members of Congress. 

A. B. Levisa is another witness. He acknowledged before the sub- 
committee of the House, Mr. Foster chairman, that he was not elected 
to the Legislature, but he was returned to the present house by the 
returning board. 

J. Madison Wells is another. It is sufficient to say of him that he 
was president of the late returning board in New Orleans, who in 
violation of law and their oaths rejected twenty-nine men who were 
clearly elected to the house, as has been admitted by every member 
of the committee of the House of Congress who were sent to New 
Orleans to inquire into the action of that board. 

The President also presents a telegram from Mr. Hewlitt, the mayor, 
which I will read. It is addressed to the Attorney-General, dated 
September 19, 1874, and is as follows : 

The timely arrival of Federal troops has saved the lives of unoffending repub- 
licans. We look confidently to the loyal North for the support which they have 
80 generously extcndid tlie weak, and hope the protection of the Government will 
continue until tlie i4i'Ltion« are over. Life is dear to us, but we cannot risk an 
aiticle so precious when surrounded by miuderous white-leaguers. 

KOBERT HEWLITT, 

Mayor. 

We know what he is from the above dispatch. He understands 
the situation in Louisiana. He knows the danger is grossly exag- 
gerated, for he does not Avish for troops any longer than "until the 
elections are over." The election is his refuge of safety. All he 
wants is an election. He knew who would do the counting. He is 
so full of the huge jest of the necessity for protection, that he grows 
facetious in his application to the Attorney-General. He s^ieaks of 
life as if it were a bale of goods, and intimates that it is too dear to 
be parted with unless he could get a bigger price than the amount of 
his salary as mayor. And yet, Mr. President, I am credibly informed 
that, grotesque as this dispatch is, the witness Hewlitt has sworn 
before an investigating committee, that the whole dispatch is a 
wicked forgery. 

That reminds me of a specimen of this evidence which I was about 
to omit. It lias been alleged that the democrats in Louisiana at- 
tempted to break up a majority of republicans in the house by arrest- 
ing one man who would have made a quorum. That man is named 
A. J. Cousin. In refei'euce to that transaction the President, on page 
26 of his message, gives us a document that is signed by nobody, has 
no authentication, and is of no more value as a matter of evitlence 
than so much waste paper which might have been picked up on the 
street or in a gutter. . But I iuhmI say no more of this paper than to 
remind the Senate that it is the same on which the Senator from New 
York relied to demonstrate the kidnapping of Cousiu. 

There is another signiticaut fact disclosed in one of the docu- 
ments accompanying the President's message, which I will uow 
bring to the attention of the Senate, and wliich is ominous of evil 
to the whole country. Whether it escai)ed the notice of the Presi- 
dent I cannot say. I take it tliat he did not see it, or lie would 
have atteinpt(Ml an explanation of its meaning. The President says 
in his message; that the ollicers and troops were sent to Louisiana 



38 

with "general instructious." What these iuatructions were, how- 
ever, he did not see lit to inform us. The scope of those iustructioua 
was a very fitting subject to communicate to the Senate, as it might 
8how on whom the blame rests for the overthrow of the State of Lou- 
isiana. But the fact I have to deal with is found in one sentence of 
the report which Louis Merrill, major of Seventh Cavalry, made from 
his headquarters. Upper Eed River, December 30, 1S74,' to the adju- 
tant-general of the Department of the Gulf at New Orleans. Major 
Merrill says — and I call especial attention to this quotation 

It is, I think, pretty well iiuderstood that my iustruotions cover the following 
points and will be carried out : That I org«tuze as the legal State officials only such 
persons as are recognized as such by the recognized executive or judicial officers of 
the State. 

Major Merrill, commanding a regiment of United States cavalry on 
Red River in Louisiana, receives " instructions" as to what part he is 
to play in the dreadful drama of overthrowing the sacred rights of 
American citizens and freemen in the State. And he writes to the 
adjutant-general of the Department of the Gulf, "Let it be under- 
stood that I will carry out my instructions." He does not disclose 
the author of those instructions. They remain a State secret that 
rests in the breast of the star chamber. Whether they went forth 
from Washington to this faithful servant, who with alacrity and 
burning zeal emphasizes his subserviency and purpose to earn tlie 
meed of "well done," or whether the adjutant-general instructed 
him directly and but repeated what he had been instructed by his 
superior officer, we are left in doubt. 

But of one fact we are not permitted to doubt, which is that Major 
Merrill was instructed by an authority higher than himself and one 
wliich he felt bomid to obey. An Army officer is not bound to obey 
any one except another Army officer of rank superior to himself. 
But let us contemplate for a moment, dispassionately if we can, the 
deed he was instructed by some one in authority to commit. He was 
instructed, which means he was ordered — for instructions to a mili- 
tary officer from his superior are commands — and he must obey or 
refuse at his peril. He was, therefore, ordered to organize a State 
government. He was ordered to organize only such State officials as 
Kellogg might select and name, or the courts might recognize. He 
is commanded, under penalty of sentence of court-martial, loss of his 
commission, or other punishment, to receive fi-om the hands of Kel- 
logg a list of the names of such persons as he might nominate, and to 
organize fkem as the legal officers of that doomed State! But this 
willing, zealous, eager organizer of governments for States proceeds 
to a further reheai-sal of the i)art he is appointed to perform, and ex- 
cites our admiration for his valor, while he allays all apprehension for 
his success. He assures his superior officer that he understands his 
duty by stating the second part of his role to be, " that in the legal 
exercise of their official duties such officers must not be violently dis- 
turbed or interfered with; and if such violence occurs, it is my duty 
to suppress it, and that I will do so." Commend me, sir, to that 
young man as a maker of States and governments. He is evidently 
a man of nerve, and dutiful withal. He gives rich promise of dis- 
tinguished rank in the new art recently invented by the republican 
party of dissolving States by act of Congress, and more recently im- 
proved upon by a drunken judge — Durell— and now rendered facile 
by that magic solvent, the sword. He has instructions first to organ- 
ize the civil aftairs of Louisiana and to suppress any ojiposition to 
them in the legal exercise of their official duties, and he assures us 



39 

lie " will do 80." He of course is to 1»e sole jiidge of what is a "leyal 
exercise " of the duties of th!)se civil officers, and to " suppress " at 
will all opposition. 

But, sir, this is but the report of a subaltern to his superior, he is 
but rehearsing to show he knows his part in the drama. The plot is 
not his own. Another and a higher head has cast the play and ar- 
ranged the tragedy. A stronger hand controls the machinery. And 
the question springs to the lips of every one, Who issued those in- 
structions ; who ordered this subaltern of the Commander-in-Chief to 
organize the civil officers of a State by force of arms ? I will not say 
the President did it, blit I do say, the President is responsilde for it. 
And I am jtistified in saying so. These instructions either issued from 
the Department of War or from some officer under its authority, or 
they emanated from Kellogg. I have shown that the officers in Louisi- 
ana "were sent and allowed to remain there" under control of Kel- 
logg. The orders to Merrill unist have been issued by the adjutant- 
general of the Department of the Gulf, and he acted either by direc- 
tion of Kellogg, or the general commanding that department, or by 
the Department of War in Washington. If they were issued at the 
direction of Kellogg, then the President is responsible for the deed, 
because he admits that he placed the officers and troops in Louisiana 
subject to Kellogg's direction and without restraining their service by 
any specific instructions. If the instructions were issued by any of 
his subordinates, the responsibility is his in law and in fact, vmless he 
repudiated them as soon as he was informed of them. But he knows 
they were issued, for he attached Merrill's report to the message he 
sent to the Senate without a syllable of disapprobation. In either 
event, the President is responsible for these orders to subvert civil 
authority by the sword, and he stands resiiousible for the overthrow 
of the Legislature, because he voluntarily gave Kellogg the power 
by whicli the deed was done. I do not say that the President sent 
troops into Louisiana for the exjiress purpose of overthrowing her 
Legislature, but I do say that to Kellogg, a man not an officer uuder 
his command, a man who holds his place as governor by what the 
President in his message denounces as a "gigantic fraud," he com- 
mitted the military power, of which he is by the Constitution sole 
Commandei", and thus aided and enabled Kellogg to do the deed. 

I do not say that the President directed those unwarrantable, un- 
pardonable instructions to be given to Merrill, but I do say that some 
officer under his connuand is the guilty author of them, and that the 
President, with knowledge of his act, has uttered no condemnation. 
But what does it matter to the people of Louisiana whether the one 
or the other be the fact ? If their liberty is lost, what boots it to 
them whether the hand by which they have fallen, struck by inten- 
tion or by mistake? , Wliat consolation can they draw in their ruiu, 
from speculation as to the motive of their destroyer? If a madman 
rush into the thronged street with deadly weai>on and slay the pass- 
ing stranger, the anguish of the loved ones bereft is none the less be- 
cause the fatal missile missed the foe at wliom it was aimed. If 
your neighbor, knowing that a desperado desires your life but has not 
the power to overcome you, lends him a fire-arm with which the 
bloody intent is carried into eftect, your murder would be none the 
less complete and bloo<ly, even thougli your neigIil)or should ])rotest 
above your grave, he did not do the deed. Whether the liberty of 
American freemen in Louisiana has been destroyed by intention, or 
by a Iduuder, is not the (juestion. The fact is before us that the ex- 
ecutive arm of the Federal Goverument supplied the power by which 



40 

their subjugation was accomplislied and by which it is continued to 
this hour. 

But I now ask your attention to a cipher or secret teleofram sent 
by Colonel Emory to the Adjutant- General of the United States Army 
on December 13, 1874, as given on page 65 of the letter of the Secre- 
tary of War to the Senate : 

[Cipher telegram. T 
New Orleans, Louisi.ina, December 15, 1874. (Received December 16.) 
To Adjutant-General United States Army : 

The returning board and people representing opposing party differ on vital ques- 
tions. Each avers against the other crime of such enormity that, in the present 
excited state of the public mind, violence is imminent. On the occasion of the 
14th of September I was informed, in a dispatch dated 15th September, that the 
President directed you to say previous orders are not to be observed ; in conse- 
quence of which, my order to Colonel Brooke to recognize Governor Kellogg was 
revoked and an interregnum intervened. To avoid future misunderstanding in the 
impending disturbance, which may happen at any moment, or may not occur until 
after the meeting of the Legislature in January, I asked to be informed if the in- 
structions contained in your dispatch of Septeniber 18 are to be considered in force, 
or if I am to await the result of another application from Governor KeUogg to the 
President. 

"W. H. EMORY, 
Colonel and Brevet Major- General, Commanding. 

What the instructions in the dispatch of September 18 from the 
War Department to General Emory were, we are left to ascertain by 
deduction. General Emory ou the 16th of December appealed again 
to the War Department, and begged that the question asked in his 
former dispatch should be answered. Here is the supplicating re- 
quest. I ask attention to this dispatch : 

In this connection I beg to refer to my cipher dispatch of yesterday, and beg 
that the question therein asked may be ai'iswered. In the absence of information, 
I proceed on the assumption that the instructions in the dispatch from the Adju- 
tant-General of September 18 are to continue to govern me in the event of another 
outbreak here or in the countrj- ; and, in following out these instructions, grave 
results may foUow, which it may not be the intention of the General Government 
should occur. 

This is a most remarkable despatch. General Emory implores for 
other instructions to guide him in the event of another outbreak and 
warns the President that in case he must carry out his instructions of 
September 18th, (those "general instructions" which the President 
tells us he had giveu to General Emory,) "grave results may follow 
which it may not be the intention of the General Government should 
occur." I suppose there is no one, not even a republican, who will 
not be surprised when I announce to the Senate and to the country 
the fact, that to this second dispatch, this imploring appeal on the 
part of General Emory, no response was given by the President. The 
Secretary of War, in his letter responding to the Senate resolution 
asking for " copies of correspondence relative to certain disorders in 
the State of Louisiana," omits to furnish a copy of this most material 
dispatch of September 18. Strange to say, every copy of the cor- 
respondence with General Emory is of later date thau the 18th of Sep- 
tember. 

But we learn from this secret telegram of General Emory, fii'st, 
that he received certain instructions four days after Kellogg's appli- 
cation to the President for protection ; secondly, that those instruc- 
tions were not revoked or changed as late as December 15, nearly 
three months from the day they were issued ; thirdly, that General 
Emory, being in doubt as to whether they were "to be considered in 
force, or if he was to await the result of another aitplication from 



41 

Governor Kellogg to the President," asked the Adjutant-General to 
remove the doubt, and we know that if he was further or otherwise 
instructed, neither the President nor the Secretary of War reveals to 
us the fact. The only dispatch which can be considered a reply to 
General Emory's earnest request is to be found on the same page, (65.) 
General Emory made his first application on December 15. Decem- 
ber 16 the Adjutant-General issues this order to him : 

The President directs that you make aiTangements to be in readiness to sup- 
press violence, and have it understood that you will do it. 

He says not a word about the instructions. 

I have said that we are left to infer not only what these instructiona 
of September 18 were, but how long they were to be obeyed by Gen- 
eral Emory. But these questions admit of very little doubt. When 
we bear in mind that Kellogg made his application to the President 
for protection on the 14th of September ; that the President responded 
and sent troops to him on the 15th ; that he then issued certain in- 
structions to the officer in command of those troops (General Emory) 
on the 18th ; that no other instructions have been issued to that offi- 
cer since that date ; that that officer desired to know if he should 
wait for Kellogg to make another aijplication in case of renewed vio- 
lence ; that Kellogg did not make any other application after the 
14th of September ; and that General Emory implicitly, and without 
questioning his authority, obeyed the order of Kellogg as govei'uor, 
on the 4th of January, 1875, to unseat five members of a legislative 
assembly, no room is left^ for doubt as to the extent of the instruc- 
tions issued to Emory. They were nothing less in effect than to 
march and countermarch, suppress or kill, as Kellogg might command. 
As to the length of time General Emory was thereby required to thus 
obey, there can be no doubt whatever. He must obey, of course, all 
military orders until they are revoked. They have never °been re- 
voked so far as we are iuformed, and they will stand, no doubt, until 
Congress by its action, or the people in their majestic moving, shall 
direct the President to release the State of Louisiana fiom her thrall- 
dom. 

Let us hear no more that the President is not responsible for the 
overtlirow of the reserved riglits of the people of Louisiana. True, 
tlie President was not present nor did he order De Trobriaud to march 
with bayonets fixed and loaded muskets into that sanctuary of the 
fi-eemen of Louisiana, where arms are a dishonor to the American 
name ; but he made that result not only probable but almost certain 
by giving over bis hdion to an adventurer, who, the President must 
have known, would use it with the recklessness of despair to hold an 
office gotten only by " gigantic fraud." Tlie President did not strike 
the fatal blow, l)ut, judged by the Constitution and the laws of the 
land, he is accessory before the fact. 

But I pass from the report of Major Merrill and the dispatch of 
General Emory to another feature of this message and of the letter 
of the Secretary of War to the Senate. 

There is a closet breathing in the instructions of theSeci'etary of War 
issued to General Sheridan which belongs not to the free, open spirit 
of a Republic. They are enveloped in the mystery which marks tlie 
movements of P2uropean diplomacy. They exhibit a distrust of the 
people. They are characterized by the secrecy by which armies are 
directed on hcjstile soil. They set the ruler at a distance far removed 
from and above the citizens. They, I am pained to say it, sjieak in 
the cautious undertone which bears to the keen ear of a spy the role 
he is to play in an enemy's camp. They are not American, they are 



42 

not iugeniious, they are not indigenous to this land of freedom. They 
Lave an imperial tone, which Americans have never heard since they 
declared for independence. They open ana begin with the word " con- 
fidential." The Secretary of War issned a secret order to General 
Sheridan on the 24th of Decem])er, 1874. After stating that the 
President had sent for him early in the morning to direct him to send 
the order, he continues : 

Inclosed herewith is an order authorizing you to assume command of the Military 
Division of the South, or of any poition of that division, should you see proper to 
do so. It may be possible that circumstances may arise which would render this 
a proper course to pursue. You can, if you desire it, see General McDowell in 
Louisville, and make known to him coufldentially the object of your trip ; but this 
is not required of you. Communication with him by you is left entirely to your 
o un ,j ud j;'ment. 

Of coiiise you can take with you such gentlemen of your staff as you wish, and it 
is best that the trip .should appear to be one as much of pleasure as of business, 
for the fact of your mere presence in the localities referred to will have, it is pre- 
sumed, a beneficial effect. 

The President thinks, and so do I, that a trip south might be agreeable to you, 

and that you might be able to obtain a good deal of information on the subject about 

which we desire to learn. Toil can make your return by Washington and make a 

verbal rejiort, and also inform me fiom time to time of your views and conclusions. 

Tours, truly, &c., 

WM. W. BELKNAP, 

Secretary of War. 

From this we learn that General McDowell was in command of th 
district embracing Louisiana; we know that General Emory was in 
immediate command of that State, and was on duty at his post. But 
the President passes them by, calls General Sheridan from his duties 
at Chicago, and, through the Secretary of War, orders him to proceed 
to New Orleans, and to let his " trip appear to l)e one as much of 
pleasure as of business." He is advised that it is left optional with 
him to inform General McDowell of the object of his trip ; biit should 
he inform McDowell, it must be done in the secrecy of confidence. 
"Communication with him by you is left entirely to your own j udgment ." 
He was permitted to take with him on this pleasui-e-business trip 
euch gentlemen of his staff a« he might wish. He was to find oiit the 
general condition of matters in New Orleans, returning from New Or- 
leans to Chicago by the direct route of Washington City, and "make 
a verbal report " to the President of his observations as to what he might 
"deem best for the interests of the public service." He was to "as- 
sume command of the military division of the south," if " circum- 
stances should arise which should render this a proper course to pur- 
sue." General Sheridan, appreciating the service as being profoundly 
secret, did not even let General McDowell have his confadence ; and 
McDowell did not know until eleven days had elapsed, that General 
Sheridan had been sent into his military command on this secret 
service. The secret was not communicated to General Sherman, 
the General of the Army, until the order had been issued two days, 
and then it was made known to him in confidence. He acknowl- 
edged receipt of it in these remarks : 

HEADQUAltTERS ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES, 

Saint Louis, Missouri, December 30, 1874. 
Gexeual : I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your confidential com 
mauication of December 20, with inclosxues. 
Tour obedient servant, 

W. T. SHEKMAN, 

General. 
General W. W. Belknap, 

Secretary of War, Washington, D. O 



43 

But, sir, this is not all. The corrcspDudence between the Secretary 
of War and the Army oihcers in Lonisiaua is cloaked and masked iu 
ci[iher. More tijau oue-half the dispatches thus scut and the answers 
thereto are secret. 

A stranger to the transactions would at once conclude that Louisi- 
ana is a foreign jiower at war with the United States. 

Major Merrill, fully impressed with the importance of his isolated 
command, when reporting that Lieutenant McDonald iiad been out 
with troops to assist Deputy Marshal Stockton iu serviug civil process, 
speaks of the movements of those troops as military " operations,'' as 
if he were commanding a force in the territ(uy of a foi'eign country 
at war with us. And, sir, the whole tenor of these communications 
from the War Department and from the officers in Louisiana are full 
of evidence that the President and Secretary of War treat the people 
of Louisiana as public enemies. This secrecy cannot be explained on 
the supposition or charge that the citizens of that State feel unfriendly 
to the General Government. The evideuce on this ])oint is concurreut, 
overwhelming, and given by Federal officers. I take their statements 
from the documents furnished by the Secretary of War. Aud I cite 
them for a twofold puri)ose : to show, first, that there is no opposi- 
tion to Federal authority in Louisiana, aud therefore there can be no 
necessity for this mystery in the movements of tlie General Govern- 
ment ; and, secondly, to show that the only opposition there is to the 
usurpation of Kellogg. 

Arthur W. AUyu, captain Sixteenth Infantry, commanditig at Col- 
fax, where whites are called murderers aud banditti, says : 

Rosistouce to State troops is s))okcn of opwily, should auy be sent, but no dispo- 
sition to ojipost- tlie United States troops apjiears. 

Major Merrill reported to General Emory, November 28, that a bad 
state of affairs existed in the Upper Red River district ; aud General 
Emory sent Colonel H. A. Morrow to investigate aud rejjort. 

The following report shows what is the treatment Ijy the citizens of 
Louisiana of Uniteil States deputy marshals, audthat Major Merrill's 
report of the condition of things on Red River is contradicted. 

HEAUQUARTEKS DEI'AliTMEXT OF THE GL'LF, 

New Orleans, Louisia7ia,XoveinberW, 1874. 

Sn{ : Afajor ^feriill telegraphs that there is a bad state of affairs in the Upper 
Eed Itivti district; that negroes are murdered aud otherwise ill treated, and asks 
additional fiiicc. 

Peisons fii una portion of that district, some of them claiming to be republicans, 
ropresi'nt a ditU-rent statr of things, and aver that any res])cttablt' dejiuty Uniti'd 
States lUiirslial can travel through that country and serve writs witliout oppositiou 
or without beiug molested. In .sonu; cases, too, it has come umler my observation 
that officers new iu the diitie.s of aiding tlie, (Tnited Statrs niar.shal have not couflued 
themselves stnctl.v to the duties vvilh whicli tlie,\- ar(' cliargi-d. and have, beyimd 
doubt, been led into deviations from the line of dut.v, wliich, as I have stated in my 
annual report, was undefined, aud which it was then earnestly asked should be 
defined. 

Under the circumstances stated in the foregoing part of this letter, and to prevent 
further abusers, if an.y, and to guard against misn-prcsintatioii, and obtain all the 
facts in the case, I have coucludecl to send Lieiitfuant-ColDnil II. A. Morrow. Thir- 
teenth Infantr.v, an officer of judgmeut and discretiou, into that district, with in- 
structions, of which the inclosed ])aper is a copy. 

I am, sir, verj- respectfully, your obedient servant, 

"W. H. EMORY, 
Colonel and Brevet Major-Ge)ieral, Commanding. 

The AnJlITANT-GEXEKAL OF T»E Ali.MY. 

(Through headquarters Division of the South.) 

Colonel Morrow went through the Red River district (Merrill's com- 
mand) and made a "'skeleton report," December 11, in which he says: 
Sir : I cannot, for want of time, submit anything more at this moment than a 



44 

skeleton report of my investigation here. It may he slow work getting down the 
river, and I say briefly, for the information of the department commander, that 
there is no need of more troops in this vicinity ; and in this view of the situation 
Major Merrill entirely concurs. 

An arrangement has been made between the United States civil authorities here 
and certain' prominent citizens, under which it is more than probable that there 
will be no further calls for troops to act as a posse to marshals. If this shall follow 
from the arrangement referred to, the Army will be reheved from a most unpleas- 
ant and onerous duty, and a great cause of local irritation will be removed. 

In all I have said it is important to understand that, so far as relates to the United 
Slates, there is not the slightest disposition to oppose the General Government, but 
the opposition to the State government is determined and expressed, and will mani- 
fest itself in open violence whenever and wherever it asserts itself. 

Colonel Morrow made a full report (December 24) of Ms investi- 
gation. He says : 

In relation to the necessity of sending more troops into that section of the State, 
I respectfully report that tliere is no need for more troops in any portion of Louisi- 
ana visited by me. * * * i mean to be understood as saying that troops will 
not be required at these points (Alexandria, Colfax, and Nachitoches) to compel 
obedience to any law of the United States. 

He says again, (page 72:) 

Hespect and regard for the General Government are expressed by all classes of 
people, and so is the determination not to be, under any circumstances, brought 
into collision with the Federal troops. 

Again Colonel Morrow reports (December 3) on the condition of 
these parishes : 

Kew Orleans, Louisiana, December 3, 1874. 
Sir : I have already reported verbally, and now by order report in writing, that 
I am of the opinion there was no necessity of the use of troo))s to aid the United 
States marshal in the service of the processes of the courts in the parishes of Lin- 
coln, Ouachita, and Jackson, Louisiana. This opinion is based 'on the statementsj 
of respectable gentlemen of both the great political parties. A marshal discharg- 
ing his duties in a gentlemanly manner does not, in my judgment, require the aid 
of the military. 

Again, the House committee, consisting of Messrs. Foster, Phelps? 
and Potter, in their report (referring to Penn's overthrow of the 
Kellogg usurpatiou) say, (page 9:) 

The movement was everywhere quietly accepted by the whites throughout the 
State until the Federal Government interfered, when Penn and his associates at 
once surrendered. ****** 

The conservatives of Louisiana do not projiose to fight the Federal Govern- 
ment. 

Thus I have shown by Army officers who were sent into and through 
Louisiana to investigate the condition of affairs there, and by mem- 
bers of Congress who were sent to New Orleans to examine into the 
whole question, that the people of Louisiana have no thought of rais- 
ing an arm against the authority of the Union. 

But the conservatives of that State are charged with intimidating 
the blacks. Sir, the whites are the people who have been intimi- 
dated. Stockton, deputy of United States marshal S. B. Packard — 
two of the men the President relies on as disinterested witnesses in 
•his indictment of the conservatives in Loitisiana — has usedevery effort 
in his power to intimidate and harass that people, and that by virtue 
of his oflice. For this statement I rely on Army officers again and the 
republican members of Congress. Having some legal process to serve, 
Stockton made a requisition for troops as a posse before he attempted 
to serve the writ. DonaldMcIntosh,iirst lieutenant Seventh Cavalry, 
was sent with a squad of men to assist him. Stockton, on reaching 
Nachitoches, assumed such authority as will ai)pear by the following 



45 

corrcspoudencf. J. F. De Vargas, mayor of that town, addi'essed 
Lieutenaut McDonald : 

Mayor' cj Office, City of Natchitoches, 

Lmtitiiana, October '3,1, 1874. 

Sir : I have been informed by Mr. J. B. Stockton, the dt^imty marshal of the 
United States foi' the district of Louisiana, tliat he chiimed the right to control the 
police regulations of the city, through the military foice under your command, to 
disband any special police whicli I. in the exercise of my official duties, might em- 
ploy, and arrest niysrlf if hi- thouuht proper. 

This statiment of the deputy marshal, made to me, is of too grave moment to be 
passed over without bringing it to your notice : and as I cannot believe that this 
sumption of authority is warranted by any military orders or instructions, I feel 
justified in addressing to you this communication. 

Lieutenant McDonald, in his report to the Assistant Adjutant-Gen- 
eral, after saying- that " The statements of the mayor are substantially 
true," proceeds — 

Mr. Stockton gave me to understand that he had authority to displace the sheriff, 
pai'ish judge, and other paiish and city officers, and appoint others, in their stead. 
Besides this ]u' had an exaggerated idea as to the extent of his authority as United 
Stati's maishal. Had I coucuiTed with him in his views on tliis point, (his author- 
ity,) and used the force under my command accordingly, iu.stead of being here, the 
chances are I would now be swinging from a tree with a rope round my neck, or 
be aprisoner in one of the parish .jails of Northern Louisiana. 
Very resiiectfully, your obedient servant, 

DONALD Mcintosh, 

First Lieutenant Seventh Cavalry, Commanding Company G. 
The JissisTAST Adjutant-Gexerai,, 

Headquarters Department of the Gulf, Netu Orleans, Louisiana. 

Colonel Morrow, in his rejiort already referred to, says, (page 72 :) 
The people reported, and seem to believe that the machinery of the Federal 
coiu'ts had been used to oppress tliem for political ends, and that the Federal 
troops has lieen used for political purposes. How far this has been the case I have 
no nuans of knowing, but I do believe that deputy United States marshals have 
used I'uited States sohliers in cases where there was no neces.sity for them, and, 
fi'om my investigations in the parishes of Ouachita and Lincoln, I am quite certain 
that these civil officers discharged their duties in an unnecessarily harsh, if not 
cruel manner. It was rei)resented to me that the marshals are in the habit of 
prowling through the country in the night time, accompanied by a posse of sol- 
diers, to make arrests of citizens who could be arrested by the marshal unaided, 
and under any circumstances should be arrested in the open daylight. 

Thus we see, that doomed people are not only victims of a usurper 
as governor; of a Legislature put into power by military force, 
(though not elected;) of a corrupt returning board convicted of per- 
jury l)y the House committee; of a judiciar^^ so accommodating as to 
make two opposite decisions on the same question, but they are also 
oppressed by the ci\dl as well as the military power of the United 
States. 

But, sir, I must for want of time turn from this branch of the sub- 
ject. 

Let us now try to realize the condition of Louisiana. And, in de- 
picting her forlorn state, I shall draw no fancy i)icture. I will let 
otliers tell the sad story, and I will call to the stand no democrat, no 
conservative, but let republicans and Army officers only speak. And 
first I will quote at length from the report of Fostkr and Phelps, 
republicans of the House of Representatives. 

The general conditi<m of affairs in the State of Louisiana seems to be a."? follows : 
The conviction lias lieen general aiiiiing the whites since ].ST2 that thi- Kellogg gov- 
ernment was a usiu-pation. This eoiivictioiiaiiion:; tlieni has been stiengtiiened by 
the acts of the Kcllii;;g Irgislatuie aliolisliing existing courts and .jiidm-s, and suli- 
stituting otliers luesided ov(^r V)V judges apjiointed liy Kellogg, having extraordi- 
nary and exclusive jurisiliction over i)oIiti<al niifstions : by changes in the laws, 
centrali/.ing in the governor every form of political control, inclmling the super- 
vision of the elections ; by continuing the returning board, with absolute power 



46 

over the returns of elections ; by the extraordinary provisions enacted for the trial 
of titles and claims to office : by the conversion of tlie police force, maintained at 
the expense of the city of Ifew Orleans, into an armed brigade of State militia, 
subject to the command of the governor : by the creation in some places of monop- 
olies in markets, gas=making, water- works, and fenies. cleaning vaults and remov- 
ing tilth, and doing work as wharfingers; by the abolition of courts with elective 
uage«, and the substitution of othei- courts with judges appointed by Kellogg, in 
evasion of the constitution of the State ; by enactments punishing criminally all 
persons who attempted to fill official positions unless returned by the returning 
board ; by unlimited appropriations for the payment of militia expenses and for the 
payment of legislative warrants, vouchers, and checks issued during the years 
1S70 and 1872 ; by laws declaring that no persons in arreais for taxes after default 
published shall bring any suit iu any coyrt of the State or be allowed to be a wit- 
ness in his own behalf — measures which, when coupled with the extraordinary 
burdens of taxation, have served to vest, in the language of Governor Kellogg's 
counsel, "a degree of power in the governor of a .State scarcely exercised by any 
sovereign in the world." 

With this conviction is a genei-al want of confidence in the integrity of the ex- 
isting State and local otiicials : a want of confidence equally iu their puiposes and 
in their personnel, which is accompanied by the paralyzation of l)usiness and de- 
struction of values. The most hopeful witness produced by the Kellogg party, 
while he declared that business was in a sounder condition tliau ever before, be- 
cause there was less credit, has since declared that "there was no prosperity." The 
securities of the State have fallen in two years f lom 70 or 80 to 25 ; of tlie city of 
New Orleans, from 80 or 90 to 30 or 40, while the fall in bank shares, railway shares, 
city and other cori)orate companies have, in a degree, corresponded. Thi-oughont 
the rural districts of the State the negi'oes, reared in habits of reliance upon their 
masters for support, and in a comnuuiity in which the members are always ready 
to divide the necessaries of life with each other, not regarding such action as very 
evil, and having immunity from punishment from the nature of the local officiaLs, 
had come to filching and stealing fruit, vegetables, and poultry, so generally — as 
Bishop "Wihuarth stated without coiitiadiction from any .source — that the raising 
of the«e articles had to be entirely abandoned, to the gieat distress of the white peo- 
ple, while witldn the parishes, as well as in New Orleans, the taxation had been 
cairied almost liteially to the extent of confiscation. In New Orleans the assess- 
ors are paid a commission for the amount assessed, and houses and stores are to 
be had there for the taxes. In Natchitoches the taxation reached about 8 per cent . 
of the as.sessed value on the projjerty. In many parishes all the white republican.^ 
.'md aU the office-holders belong to a single family. There are five of the Greens in 
office in Lincoln ; there are seven of the Boults in office in Natciiitoches. As the 
people .saw tKixation increase and prospei ity diminish — as they grew poor while 
officials grew rich — they became naturallj' sore. That they love their rulers cannot 
be pretended. 

The Kellogg government claims to have reduced taxation. This has been effected 
in part by e.-itablishing a board to fund the debt of the State at 60 per cent, of its 
face value. This measure aroused great hostility, not so much because of the re- 
duction of its acknowledged debt, a.s because it gave to the funding board, whose 
powers seem to be absolute and without review, discretion.ary authoiity to admit 
to be fiuided some six millions of debt alleged to be fraudulent. So that, under the 
guise of reducing the acknowledged debt, it gave opportunity to swell the fraud- 
ulent debt agaiiLst the State. Tliis nominal reduction of the State taxes has been 
accompanied by a provision that the parish taxes shall not exceed the State. But 
the pari.shes have notwithstanding created liabilities; judgments being recovered 
on these, the courts have directed taxes to be levied for their payment, and thus 
the actual taxes have been cariied far beyond the authorized rates. Rings have 
been formed in parishes, composed of the parish officers, their relatives, and some- 
times of co-operating democrats, who wf)uld buy up these obligations, put them in 
iudgmonts, and cause them to be enforced, to the great distress of the neighboi'- 
hood. a distress so general that the sales of lauds for taxes have become almost 
absolutely impossible. 

But the reduction of wages, the non-fufillment of personal or political pledges, 
the misfeasance of some local officials, disputes among the leading colored persons 
in other localities, the loss or embezzlement in some cases of the school funds, and 
the failure of the Freedman's Bank, all combined to divide the views of colored 
voters during the late, campaign. An effort was accordingly made by the con- 
servatives to acquire a part of the negTo vote ; with that view it was sought in 
many quarters to proj)itiate them. Ficquent arrests by the United States mar- 
shals for intimidation or threats of non-employment, and the apprehension tluxt 
was felt that the returning board would count out their men if excuse for such a 
course were ofl^^red, all combined, especially after the 14th of September, to put the 
conservatives on their gooii beha^^ol■. :ind the result was that in November. 1874 
the people of the State of Louisiana did fairly have a free, peaceable, and full reg- 



47 

istration and pltH'lion, in which a clfai- consprvative mnioiity wa-s plcctert to the 
lower house of tin- Le^iislatiiie, of wliiili niajoiity tlie eoiisiiv;i lives were deprived 
by the unjust, ilkaal, and arbitrary action of the returning board. 

Colonel Morrow, in his report, says : 

Dissatisfaction and discontent are plainly visible in all the acts and conversation 
of the people, and the result is niauifcst in almost every department of business. 
Uncultivated fields, unrepaired fences, rootless and dilapidated dwelliufi.s, iukI 
abandoned houses meet the eye at every ste]), and the wliole aspect of the coiui- 
try, kas a look of poverty and nejilect. The schools in many parislicsare closed for 
want of money to pay the teachers, and I was told us:ain aiid a^aiu tliat the school 
funds had been stolen by the State officials. In one jjarish a criminal court had 
not been held in nearly two years, and in other parishes no court, criminal or ci\'il, 
had been held for a lonj; time. In a community where there aie no courts crime 
finds a genial soil, and the natural result is that tlie law has fallen into disregard 
and disrepute. Judges were openly charged with coiTuption, and money, and not 
justice, is cliarged with tuiiiing the judicial scales. 

The people I'eported, ami seem to belie\e, that the machinery of the Federal 
conrt.s had been used to oppress Ihemfor political ends, and that the Federal troops 
had been used for p(ditical purpo.ses. How far this has been the case I have no 
means of knowing, V)ut 1 do believe that deputy United States marslial.s have used 
United Slates suidieis in cases when- tlicre v,as no uecessiiy for them, and, from 
my investigations, in the parishes of Ouachita and Lincoln, I am quite certain that 
these civil oHicers discliarged their duties in an unnecessarily harsh, if not cruel, 
manner. It was represented to me that the mar.slials are in the habit of prowl ng 
through the country in the niiilitlime, accompanied by a posse of soldiers, to mjjke 
arrests of citizens wlio could be arrested by the marshal unaided, and, under s ny 
circum.stances. should be arrested in the open daylight. 

These night arrests seemed to have a peculiar terror foi' the people, and my at 
tention was repeatedly called to them. Auothei- subject of complaint was ^he fact 
tiiat citizens are arrested without the shadow of a cause, and after long *ud vexa- 
tious delay and gieat •■xpense, are set at liberty without atfordiug them oven a pre- 
liminary hearing. And another .subject of Ijitter complaint, especially in Cou- 
shatta, is the fact that tliere is not a United States commissioner in the parish, and 
persons arrested are required to be sent to tlie city of Xew Orleans, several hun- 
dred miles distant, for even an examination. The expense of getting witnes.scs to 
so di.staut a point will mak(- even Jiistii-e a luxury that <mly the rich can procure. 
A man of moderate means could not hojie to prove his innocence if the presence of 
many witnesses wa.s required for tlie i)ui])ose. The peoi)le at Coushatta complained 
also, and I think Justly, that a jicrson liad been sent tlierc last fall as coniiiiissioner 
who was a brother t« oiu- and briither-in-law to another of the uiifintunate men 
who were so brutally and <Uistai(ily unn-dered in August last. However brutal 
may have been the ciicLniist;u!ce atteniling ibe massacre of the.se men, it will be 
at once conceded by every man at all familial' with lules in American and English 
courts, that a near rclativf of the persons murdered is not a proper person to sit as 
judge in even a preliminary hearing. 

Tnese were complaints made to me against United States officials, and I there- 
fore report them for the information of the department commander. The com- 
plaints against the State officers were so numerous that a mere I'liumeiatioii of 
them would till a volume. Corruption and jobbing in office ; partiality and favor- 
itiitm in the admiiiislraiion of justice ; exorbitant taxes, rising in some instances 
to 7 and 8 per cent, on the ajipiaised value of the property; a ruined credit; a de- 
pleted State and p;ii isli tri-;isury ; enormous debts. State and parish ; and multipli- 
cati(m of officeis in the per.sons of favored individuals, are a few of the charges 
made bj' the people iigainst tluar Slate authorities. 

The political condition of the State is the one subject of conversation every- 
where, in public and private, and among all classes, except the negro, who feols no 
interest in it, because he does not comprehend it. The dissHtisfaition is wide- 
spread and deep, and I am firmly convinced that sooner or later there will be au 
outbreak of public feeling which" will be attended by scenes of fearful violence. 
The detenu inatioji to escape from the rule of the ]>rescnt State government is 
fixed in every mind, and, wlieiiever the oi>])ortunity presents itself, a blow wll be 
struck for the "liberation of Louisiana." to u.se the expression in common use. A 
combination or organization am<nig tiie white men ramifiesevery parish and neigh- 
borhood, and there is jieifecl unanimity of sentiment, anil will be concert of action 
whenever the time comes to take a ileeisive stand. Without going into needh-.ss 
details, I give the following as my deeji-seated convictions : The present State gov- 
ernment cannot maintain" itself iii power a single hour without the protection of 
Federal troops. I do not believe that the present State authorities, oven with the 
protection of Federal tr(M)ps, will be able to collect taxes and i>e)-form the func- 
tions of government after an early day in the new year. Oppositi<m to them will be 



48 

made at every turn, and every step they attempt to take will be beset with obstruc- 
tions. Outside of New Orleans there is no party or orsanization in the State with 
sufficient strength or influence to atford the slightest aid. 

The State government has not the confidence or respect of any portion of the 
community. I do not believe the Legislature, as organized under the recent actioa 
of the returning board, will be allowed to assemble, except under the protection 
of United States soldiers. "Whether the reported action of the board is correct or 
not I am unable to say. If it is not, these remarks will have no force, as the con- 
tingency upon which they are based will not arise. I do not mean by this that the 
soldiers mu.st necessarily be in force in the State-house, but the presence on the 
ground of a representative of the military power, with authority to declare in the 
name of the General Government that the Legislature will be under Federal pro- 
tection ; will be necessary to pi'event in my judgment a terrible scene of disorder 
and perhaps bloodshed. I not only do not believe, but I am absolutely certain that 
there will not be at any time in Louisiana any organized or authorized resistance 
to the General Government. If the expressions of the people are to be believed, 
and I do believe them, there is a very sincei'e desire to live quietly under the 
protection of the Constitution of the United States and enjoy the blessings of the 
National Government. But there is no disguising the fact that the protection afforded 
by the Federal Administration to the government of the present State executive is 
tie cause of bitter personal and political feeUug in the breasts of nineteen-tweu- 
tieths of the white iuhiibitants of the State. 

I shall not be astonished if two Legislatures are organized in New Orleans on the 
4tli day of Januaiy next. 

I have refrained from expressing opinions of my own on the causes which have 
brought the State of Louisiana to a condition of rebellion against its State govern- 
ment ; but I do give it as my deliberate opinion that there will be open and organ- 
ized forcible opposition to each and every act of the State government in a short 
time, unless Congress by appropriate legislation shall provide a means for the sat- 
isfactory settlement of affairs in this section of the Union. If Congress fails to 
legislate, a standing military force in almost every parish will be necessary to 
give protection to persons of the agents of the State executive ; but a military force 
cannot compel people to pay taxes and do a thousand things necessary to good 
government; and I think, therefore, there is danger of the State organization 
coming to a standstill for want of necessary agents and machinerj' to keep it in 
motion. On every account, in my opinion, it is important that Congress should 
do something ; and if there is any way by which the military department can 
bring the subject to the attention of that body it should be done. 
I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

HENRY A. MOEROW, 
Lieutenant- Colonel Thirteenth Infantry. 

Assistant Adjutant-General, 

Department of the Oulf, Nevj Orleans, Louisiana. 

For the benefit of tliose who do not know this officer, I snhmit the 
following indorsement of General Sherman, commander of the Army, 
and of General Emory. 

The latter, when transmitting the report of Colonel Morrow, from 
which I quote, says : 

Headquarters Department of the Gulf, 

Neiv Orleans, December 27, 1874. 
(Through Headquarters Division of the South.) 

The report of Lieutenant-Colonel Morrow is respectfully forwarded. 
This officer, who has hei'etot'ore been intrusted by the Governmeat with impor- 
tant and delicate commands, was, by reason of his experience and the high confi- 
dence reposed in him, sent to make an inspection of the state of affairs in North- 
western Louisiana, as reported in a letter to adjutant-general, dated November 28, 
inclosinga copy of my instructions to him. I thiuk it my duty to place the Gov- 
ernment in possession of the facts stated and the views expressed by this officer. 

W. H. EMORY, 
Colonel and Brevet Major-Oeneral, Commanding. 

General Sherman, in speaking of the report, says: 

, This paper is most respectfully forwarded to the Secretary of "War, with a re- 
quest that he submit it for the personal perusal of the President. I know of no 
officer of Colonel Morrow's rank who is better qualified to speak and write of mat 
tcrs like this, and his opinions are entitled to great consideration. 

Senator Sherman, in his speech made in the Senate during this de- 



49 

hafe, Las given us tbe following picture of the condition of things in 
Louisiana : 

They bave to encounter another great difficulty in the novelty of former masters 
and slaves living together as freemen. This we know by all history is a most difid- 
cult problem. Those who were once slaves, whose wives and children were bar- 
tered and sold like sheep, are now citizens. The masters have been impoverished; 
they liavo lost their slaves ; they liave lost the use of their lauds ; all their labor is 
broken up. All these things are to be considered, and we must not overlook them. 
We must not therefore expect from them the same orderly regularity, the same 
freedom from violence and force, that we should expect in a stable, ordeily peoi)le 
like the people of Ohio or New York. All the sources of wealth are dried up. 
When I was there last winter I conversed with gentlemen of all political jiarties, 
and saw the great change in the value of their proi)orty and the amount of their 
income. Some families liad incomes dependent upon the rents of real estate in New 
Orleans, and the real estate would hardly pay the taxes, and they were reduced to 
poveity, hardly able to gatliei- money enough to pay their taxes. All that creates 
acerbity aud bitterness of feeling, and no one felt it more than I did at that time. 
Thoughtful men I say sliould give lieed to all these discouragements aud difficul- 
ties ; but after all, considering them all, we have a right to ask of these people to 
respect the law, to be obedient to the law. 

Such, Mr. President, is the picture of the condition of Louisiana as 
drawn in faintest colors by those whose interest and desire restrain 
them from exaggeration. And such is the fruit of reconstruction. 

The republican party sowed the winds, and now they affect to stand 
appalled aud rebitke the work of their own hands. They bound Pro- 
metheus on tlie rock, and when he writhes under the agony of the 
claws and beaks of vultures, they smite him for his convulsive strug- 
gle to be free. Hard as .stone and cold as ice must be the heart which 
does not go out in symx>athy for the people of Louisiana. lu a laud 
of boasted freedom she is in slavery; the slavery of intelligence 
to ignorance ; of rehnemeut to brutality ; morality to crime. Fast as 
the wheels of time can bear her, she is speeding from the light of 
civilization into the night and darkness of barbarism. The blossom- 
ing garden is fading into a wilderness. A once noble race, with 
altars of worship neglected, is changing to a nomadic tribe who are 
followed only by tax-gatherers for money and marshals with military 
escorts to make arrests. And they are giving way to a race so infe- 
rior in intellect and moral sense, that they "feel no interest in the 
political condition, because they do not comprehend it." 

Uncultivated fields, unrepaired fences, roofless and dilapidated 
dwellings and abandoned houses meet the eye at evei-y step, and the 
whole aspect of the country has a look of i^overty and neglect. 

Schools in many pari.shes are closed for want of nionej^ to pay the 
teachers, because the State officials have stolen the fuuds " appropri- 
ated to education." 

In one parish a criminal court has not been held in nearly two 
years, and in other parishes no court, criminal or civil, has been held 
for a long time. 

Judges are openly charged with corruption, and money, and not 
justice, turns the.judicial scales. Federal courts are believed to be 
used for political ends, and Federal troops for political purposes. 
United States marshals, backed by troops, arrest citizens at night 
and in a harsh if not cruel manner. 

Kinsmen of jiersons killed arc commissioned to sit in judgment on 
the accused. Bayonets uphold a usurpation which "without their 
protection conld not maintain itself a single hour," because " niue- 
teen-twentieths of the white inhabitants" cannot and will not 
acknowledge its power, and because it " has not the confidence or 
respect of any portion of the community." Taxes are levied as high 
as 8 per cent, of the appraised value, and the greed of assessors is 
4 X 



50 

stimulated by paying them a commission for the amount assessed," 
and taxation is "carried almost literally to the extent of confisca- 
tion," and " the distress is so general that the sales of land for taxes 
have become almost absohitely impossible." 

Mr. President, this is the calamitous condition of things in Louisi- 
ana, and theii' existence is only evidence of the fact that the virtue 
and patriotism of the whole country are on the decline. 

The whole body-politic is sorely diseased. Gangrene has seized 
upon one extremity and its deadly virus is spreading by natural cir- 
culation to the seat of life. If the malady of Loiiisiana be not cured, 
the Republic must die. Compression will not heal it and isolation is 
impossible. Already is the whole liead sick and the whole heart 
faint. Rome began to decay in her extremities. The rapacity of 
satraps and pro-consuls on her remotest confines brought on revolts. 
The legions were sent to enforce civil law, and the work was done. 
But the eagles that spread their guardiau wings over the tents of 
satraps and minions of power on the banks of the Euphrates, the 
Tagus, and the Rhine, to enforce civil law by force of arms, covered 
the hosts of Ctesar when he set his face against the capitol of Rome. 
The legions that yielded dumb obedience to the commands of the con- 
sul in the provinces, were liis willing instruments when he planted 
his martial foot on the civil law. History repeats itself, and always 
will under the same conditions. The ouly unchanging quantity in 
the problem of human destiuy is the moral nature of man. Ambition, 
pride, hate, revenge, lust of power are the same to-day they were 
when Adam fell. The Cliristian religion is the only restraint upon 
their mad career, and we to-day, with all our boasted civilization, are 
on the verge of a dreadful abyss. Rome as a republic withstood the 
shock of assaults from without and dissensions within for five hun- 
dred years. We, before the close of our first century, in the vigor of 
youth, are about to fall by our own hands. 

History not only repeats itself, but it moves with striking coincid- 
ence. 

I do not say that President Grant is a Csesar, but his champions 
tell us, " history repeats itself." When Cfesar, the soldier, fixed his 
coveting eye on the coming empire, he first had himself elected con- 
sul. He was then chief magistrate and the commander of the army 
at the same time. " History repeats itself." He moved his army to 
the province of Gaul and subjugated it to his will. " History repeats 
itself;" and the inhabitants of Louisiana are the descendeuts of the 
Gauls of Rome, who were the first conquered subjects of imperial 
Ca?sar. " History repeats itself ;" and when Csesar the dictator had 
established himself in the capital of the empire in fact, though in 
form and semblance it was still a republic, imperial Ciesar, the 
former soldier, who had led his legions in victory against the Gauls 
when they were in arms against the republic, addressed to the as- 
sembled senate and people these historic words : 

Let not these appearances of luilitary force alarm yon. The troops which are 
quartered, in the city and which attend my person are destined to defend, not to 
oppress the citizens ■ and these troops I trust Itnow, ixpon every occasion, the lim- 
its of their duty. 

The President tells the people of Louisiana, " You must obey the 
law." Kellogg, with " damnable iteration," like a prating parrot, 
repeats, " obey the law," and Senators rise and say, 'the people of 
Louisiana must " obey the law." What law, Mr. President, are the 
people of Louisiana to obey ? In 1872 they held an election, and by 
the report of your committee, the candidate of the conservatives had 



51 

the majority, and yet, through the order uL .1 dniiikeii judge, the gov- 
ernment of that State was overthrown, and the President said " You 
must obey the law." KeUogg usurped the governorshiii of that State, 
and the President hehl him by force of arms and said to the people 
of Louisiana, " You must obey the law." I have shown you to-night 
that they have never resisted a law of the United States; they have 
raised no arm; they have not even raised their voice except against 
the usurpation of Kellogg. Their submission has been more sublime 
than any heroism that was ever displayed upon the held of battle. 
They have obeyed the law. They were encouraged and told last year 
they should have a fair and honest election. They obeyed the law 
and held their election peaceably and without intimiihition, and it is 
conceded that the conservatives carried the State by an overwhelm- 
ing majority. Kellogg organized his returning board. A majority 
of twenty-nine was overturned by that board, the Legislature wa^ 
literally stolen from the democrats, and republicans defeated in the 
election were seated by Federal troops, and yet the President says, 
"You must obey the law." 

The Senator from New York advises them to go to work. They 
were at work ; but, says Bishop Wilmur, without contradiction, " theft 
of the products of the soil became so general the production had to 
be abandoned." They worked and filled their coffers with money to 
educate whites and blacks, and the State officials, guardians of these 
wards, stole the fuud. The devotees of Bel, the heathen god, were 
required by their king to make offerings by day to satisfy the apjie- 
tite of his idol at night, and his high priests entered by night and 
stole their offerings from the temple. So the people of Louisiana 
have been plundered and robbed by the guardians of law and order 
for six years past, and they are now mocked in their calamity by the 
advice to make more for the thieves to fatten (m. 

Were I called on to counsel that stricken and deserted people, I 
would appeal to them in behalf of themselves and their children,,to 
bear for a brief time longer the ills they have ; I would appeal to 
them in the name of liberty, and of forty million .souls, to abide in 
patience the verdii;t of tlui jjcople in the centennial year of our 
Kepublic. Their destiny is our own. If their tliralldom shall not 
be broken, the prison walls must expand and eml)race us all. We 
cannot live half free, half bondmen. The advice to them may seem 
cruel, it may be selfish, because they hold the destiny of us all in 
their" hands ; for the flame of revolution kindled there will spread 
to the confines of the Republic. I would beg them to believe that 
even their — 

Existence ijiay bo borne, and the deep root 
Of life and sutt'c lancc find its tinii abode 

In bare and dcs(ilate<l bosoms ; nmto 
The camel bcuis its lieaviest load, 

And the wolf dies in silence ; not bestowed 
In vain should siuli example bo ; if they, 

TluHK.s of savage and ignoble mood, 
Eniluro and shrink not, wo of nobler clay 

Can temper it to bear — it is but for a day. 

Yes, sir; I believe as strongly as I believe in the pi'ogessive destiny 
of mankind, that the justice of the great American heart, like an angel 
of mercy, will go to the rescue of Louisiana on the morning of our 
centennial day, and will roll away the stone which now entombs her, 
and that she will rise and come forth to walk the earth again in full 
communion with her glorious sisterliood. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



014 544 667 3 



